> In June 2017, patrons were ejected from the Arlington Hotel, a Samuel Smith pub in North Yorkshire. “I had just called in for a couple of pints,” one local man told the Gazette Live. “Next thing, the door burst open and this man started shouting the Samuel Smith policy on swearing. He said he had been outside and heard somebody swear. Then he turned to the girl behind the bar and said, ‘Shut this bar and get these out.’” The Arlington is now shuttered.
> Attempts to control customers’ behaviour have occasionally made national headlines. In 2011, one Samuel Smith pub, the John Snow in Soho, became notorious when it ejected two men who were kissing. The incident sparked spirited protests, including a mass same-sex “kiss-in” outside the pub. Samuel Smith offered no comment or explanation.
For relevant context for anyone wondering if Sam Smiths pubs are a quaint relic of the past, they also run a handful of the cheapest (and therefore busiest) pubs in popular locations in central London. Can confirm I've sworn in more than one of them
Let's be honest, this Humphrey guy isn't stupid enough to shutter down one of his London locations. Nor is he going to be able to exert influence in London's planning regimes. This is a guy who exerts his power in small towns and quaint villages, because that's where he knows his money will go longer.
Many a birthday have I begun by sitting alone at the bar, in a cubby hole, at The Princess Louise, reading for pleasure and necking G&Ts, in a gradually-improving mood until the evening, when friends begin to show and we find a bigger - never better - spot in the pub.
And no visitors to the city have ever felt disappointed in an English pub if taken to the Louise, John Snow, Cittie of York, or a few of the other unmodified Sam Smith’s pubs in town. I even like most of their beers.
But they are a bit weird and stories of the boss are pretty legendary, and this confirms it in glorious detail.
> And no visitors to the city have ever felt disappointed in an English pub if taken to the Louise
Well, I have, because you can't get proper Guinness there, only Smith's inferior substitute. But it is a nice pub, despite that. Toilets are particularly good.
There is that, but nothing can really temper unrealistic expectations. You can enjoy stout for what it is on its own merits, though. And plenty of stouts beat Guinness in blind testing (or is it tasting?) such as London Black. Not that one will find that in a Sam Smith's pub.
Not really relevant, but the context doesn't arise all that often: I used to live near the Cittie of Yorke and the 'Y' on the sign was so florid that I genuinely thought it was called the city of "Porke" for the best part of a year!
Met my wife in there, but the refurb ruined it a bit for me. Much prefer the Mitre at the bottom on Hatton Garden, have had to be carried out of there on occasion, but I know what you mean about Sam Smith's Zoider.
What I gathered from the article is that it's possible to denial of service attack the owner's livelihood by simply uttering curses at 20 or so locations across the country.
Humphrey Smith sounds like a national treasure. Good to have prickly eccentric traditionalists around as contrast to slick modern homogeneity. It takes all kinds! Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale is fantastic by the way.
He's 80 years old now, and it sounds like he might be suffering from dementia. That business about objecting to the taste of his beer is a common symptom of dementia, as are his inappropriate reactions.
Is it all eccentricity, mental illness, or overprivileged jerkiness?
Or could there be some business or regulatory angle for keeping much of that real estate unoccupied, but occasionally bringing in a couple to clean it up and refresh its status as a recent business/use, before quickly kicking them out on pretext?
The article never hints at a business or regulatory angle. The author repeatedly has no answer for the sudden (and often long-term) closures.
After the first anecdote about the couple getting evicted shortly after spending weeks of 12-16 hour days cleaning a derelict property I thought it was just some asshole miser stealing sweat equity from would-be proprietors, but the larger picture seems more like mental illness than pure avarice.
A break even business sitting on high value property is just as valuable closed as it is open, and it appreciates in value the more restrictions are piled on development of scarce local real estate.
The mental health theory aside, this may be why these... Eclectic... Business decisions end up being tolerable. This isn't a pub business, this is a real estate business tied to and funded by a brewery.
Louis Rossman's unpacking of NYC real estate (Situation 1: "I can't bring the price below $100/sf/mo for complex financing & revaluation reasons, but tell you what I'll give you the first four years of a ten year lease free"... Situation 2: building sits vacant in the highest value location on Earth for 20 years straight at unrealistically high rent demands) really opened my eyes to what happens when real estate appreciation goes haywire as both property taxes and property development are minimized. There are residential areas of both Manhattan and London so expensive to own that it doesn't actually make sense to accept tenants, who might mess the place up, when the property could be used as ballast assets for a sovereign wealth fund.
Most of these pubs in dying rural villages are hardly high value property. Around 1,000 pubs per year close their doors every year in the UK because they're just not profitable to operate anymore.
It’s really not. Landlord can’t cut the rent because commercial real estate values are based on cap rate. So an empty property with a an unreasonably high rent is better than a leased property with a market-will-bear rent that leaves the landlord underwater.
Rather a lopsided article that misses the point somewhat. Humphrey Smith may be an eccentric and unkind loon, but Sam Smith’s pubs in London are far and away the best chain in town, by some distance.
Beautifully maintained or restored interiors, good beer, low prices and no music so you can actually talk to mates while enjoying a pint.
Humphrey Smith is stepping down by the way, and according to the barmaid at my local, his son is taking over. He’s apparently cut from the same cloth, but if he keeps the pubs the way they are, I don’t mind a bit.
I have had the displeasure of meeting the miserable bastard, several times, in the process of a bid for a technology project some years ago.
When we withdrew, as it was clear to me that this was going to be a looney tunes scramble through a hedgerow while being berated by a cast-iron lunatic, he made it very clear we had made the right decision. I had the grace to tell him we were withdrawing our interest face to face. He turned a shade of purple that cannot possibly be healthy, before storming from the room like an overgrown child.
Which brings me to the mystique - there is none. The man is an overgrown schoolboy and he acts like one. Call it eccentric, call it whimsical - I would call it stunted and inane. He has survived by dint of a property bubble - otherwise he would have run the business into the ground decades ago.
When we withdrew, as it was clear to me that this was going to be a looney tunes scramble through a hedgerow while being berated by a cast-iron lunatic, he made it very clear we had made the right decision. I had the grace to tell him we were withdrawing our interest face to face. He turned a shade of purple that cannot possibly be healthy, before storming from the room like an overgrown child.
That is a wonderful description; and while I like his beer and would probably enjoy drinking it in one of his pubs, I would cross a four-lane highway against the light to avoid having to deal with the man himself.
That said, you were not in a position to add a 500% 'wanker tax' to the price of the bid, to make it worth dealing with him?
> Why would a man behave so aggressively, causing distress to so many, costing his own businesses many millions of pounds in the process? What could have been the origin of this obsession?
Hubris and the desire to mould one's daily environment to their wishes. This is basically the English equivalent of Yellowstone's John Dutton, making stupid decisions in the name of preserving the ranch.
> Attempts to control customers’ behaviour have occasionally made national headlines. In 2011, one Samuel Smith pub, the John Snow in Soho, became notorious when it ejected two men who were kissing. The incident sparked spirited protests, including a mass same-sex “kiss-in” outside the pub. Samuel Smith offered no comment or explanation.
As detailed in "Calling Out Sam Smith's RIDICULOUS Pub Policies" on Joe Lycett's Got Your Back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oDZB-ZyvTE
And no visitors to the city have ever felt disappointed in an English pub if taken to the Louise, John Snow, Cittie of York, or a few of the other unmodified Sam Smith’s pubs in town. I even like most of their beers.
But they are a bit weird and stories of the boss are pretty legendary, and this confirms it in glorious detail.
Well, I have, because you can't get proper Guinness there, only Smith's inferior substitute. But it is a nice pub, despite that. Toilets are particularly good.
I swear years ago the Sam Smiths cider used to be hallucinogenic. And the other stuff they serve is definitely a bit curious.
Magic is truly still alive.
Maybe it takes a rich yorkshireman to show how crazy the British planning laws are, but they've been crazy for decades.
Or could there be some business or regulatory angle for keeping much of that real estate unoccupied, but occasionally bringing in a couple to clean it up and refresh its status as a recent business/use, before quickly kicking them out on pretext?
After the first anecdote about the couple getting evicted shortly after spending weeks of 12-16 hour days cleaning a derelict property I thought it was just some asshole miser stealing sweat equity from would-be proprietors, but the larger picture seems more like mental illness than pure avarice.
The mental health theory aside, this may be why these... Eclectic... Business decisions end up being tolerable. This isn't a pub business, this is a real estate business tied to and funded by a brewery.
Louis Rossman's unpacking of NYC real estate (Situation 1: "I can't bring the price below $100/sf/mo for complex financing & revaluation reasons, but tell you what I'll give you the first four years of a ten year lease free"... Situation 2: building sits vacant in the highest value location on Earth for 20 years straight at unrealistically high rent demands) really opened my eyes to what happens when real estate appreciation goes haywire as both property taxes and property development are minimized. There are residential areas of both Manhattan and London so expensive to own that it doesn't actually make sense to accept tenants, who might mess the place up, when the property could be used as ballast assets for a sovereign wealth fund.
It’s really not. Landlord can’t cut the rent because commercial real estate values are based on cap rate. So an empty property with a an unreasonably high rent is better than a leased property with a market-will-bear rent that leaves the landlord underwater.
Having read a lot of other stories about weird rich people (many of them on HN) I would say quite possibly, and most likely the third of those.
Beautifully maintained or restored interiors, good beer, low prices and no music so you can actually talk to mates while enjoying a pint.
Humphrey Smith is stepping down by the way, and according to the barmaid at my local, his son is taking over. He’s apparently cut from the same cloth, but if he keeps the pubs the way they are, I don’t mind a bit.
https://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2024/10/passing-on-torch....
When we withdrew, as it was clear to me that this was going to be a looney tunes scramble through a hedgerow while being berated by a cast-iron lunatic, he made it very clear we had made the right decision. I had the grace to tell him we were withdrawing our interest face to face. He turned a shade of purple that cannot possibly be healthy, before storming from the room like an overgrown child.
Which brings me to the mystique - there is none. The man is an overgrown schoolboy and he acts like one. Call it eccentric, call it whimsical - I would call it stunted and inane. He has survived by dint of a property bubble - otherwise he would have run the business into the ground decades ago.
That is a wonderful description; and while I like his beer and would probably enjoy drinking it in one of his pubs, I would cross a four-lane highway against the light to avoid having to deal with the man himself.
That said, you were not in a position to add a 500% 'wanker tax' to the price of the bid, to make it worth dealing with him?
Hubris and the desire to mould one's daily environment to their wishes. This is basically the English equivalent of Yellowstone's John Dutton, making stupid decisions in the name of preserving the ranch.