Chester landlord blames working from home culture for pub's closure

A landlord has blamed people working from home as the reason why his pub has been forced to close.

Jeremy Brunning, who runs basement pub The Henry Potts in Chester, said the city had turned into a "ghost town" as nobody was coming in to go to offices anymore.

Referencing working from home and "ridiculous electricity bills", he said it was "with great sadness and not a little irritation" that the pub was closing.

Mr Brunning said: "I think we’d easily have been able to make it if more people were in their offices and keen for lunch and early evening refreshment, but most seem to be working from home.

"The commercial heart of Chester is a bit of a ghost town."

In the statement, he continued: "It’s a beautiful pub, like a cosy little underground hideaway with excellent staff and the best quality food and drink.

"However, it’s simply not doing enough trade. If you saw the numbers they’d look like a lot but in today’s economic environment, with ridiculous electricity bills and a host of other inflationary costs, it needs to be busier to be viable.

"So we must close. We’d like to say a huge thank you to the pub’s hard-working team.

"They’ve made us very proud and we are doing what we can to keep and relocate those who want to."

The firm behind the pub, Pubs Limited, also runs other Cheshire pubs The Hare in Farndon, The Black Bear in Whitchurch, The Swan in Marbury as well as The Druid Inn in Flintshire.

Mr Brunning, director of Pubs Limited, said The Henry Potts had been offered for sale but had so far received "no bites".

The venue will instead be mothballed "for the foreseeable future".

"It's such a shame," Mr Brunning added. "If you have enjoyed The Potts then thank you, and sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You’ll be pleased to hear that our other four pubs are thriving, so why not go to one of those instead. A nice thing to do if you’re WFH (there’s an irony)."

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