Famous York pub shuts suddenly

It’s the pub which features in a thousand riverside photographs of York.

But the Kings Arms is not looking at its picturesque best – as it is currently closed.

The pub, owned by Sam Smith’s Brewery, shut on Saturday (8 April). The manager is understood to have moved on, and the brewery has not yet found a replacement.

With the doors shut and curtains drawn at all the ground floor windows, lunchtime customers were leaving disappointed today.

And the beer garden, on the cobbles next to the Ouse, had become a picnic area for people enjoying their pack ups rather than the usual drinkers.

Manager struggles

The pub is nationally famous for continuing to serve customers even when the river bursts its banks and floods the ground floor bar.

But it has struggled to find a long-term manager. It has had at least two different publicans in the last year.

Sam Smith’s Brewery have been advertising for new licensees since 11 March. The advert asks for a

• live-in joint management couple to run very busy small historic pub with open fires and trade kitchen on the riverside in York.

  £1,000 fidelity bond essential. Salaried position. Rent + Utilities bills will be paid for. No commute to work. Full training available.
  

Run in a secretive and eccentric way, the family-owned Samuel Smith’s Brewery is known for its unusual policies and management.

Last month YorkMix reported how the brewery was banning phones, laptops and tablets from its pubs.

Its treatment of its licensees – one in York was told to vacate the premises by the end of the weekend – might be causing recruitment problems.

Another Sam Smith’s pub, the Brigadier Gerard on Monkgate, is still advertising for new managers a year after it shut.