A York pub is looking for new tenants just six months after reopening – as its highly experienced landlady said: “We can’t make it work”.
Last year, the Inn On The Green in Acomb was run down and boarded up. Then Lyndsay Weston took over the tenancy, and turned it round.
But she will be leaving the pub in June – and the licensed trade too.
“We’ve had a fabulous six months. But we can’t make it work, working for these big pubcos,” Lyndsay told YorkMix.
The Inn On The Green is a Thwaites pub, but Lyndsay emphasised that she wasn’t “slating Thwaites”.
Working with her husband Stuart, she breathed new life into the Inn On The Green after reopening it last September – but at a personal cost.
She said: “We’ve got our own wine merchants that we’ve worked with for a long time, over ten years. So we put all our own wines in.
“And then my husband’s head brewer over at Ainsty Ales. So they kindly let us take a line to put Ainsty on – because obviously, Thwaites is all Lancashire. You know what us Yorkshire folk are like, we like to drink our own Yorkshire beer!”
But because these drinks were not supplied by Thwaites, Lyndsay didn’t get the same discount, cutting her margins.
“What we came here to do was to set up a really fabulous business where you could get a premium lager and a premium glass of wine,” Lyndsay said.
“We’ve priced everything correctly, but there’s still no cream left for us to take.”
She took a wage, but her husband who worked there part time, couldn’t take anything. To work round-the-clock running the pub and still not make a reasonable living became too much. She felt the time was right to retire from running pubs.
“Stu and I haven’t lived in a house for 26 years,” Lyndsay said. “We’ve always lived above a pub or next door.
“The need to have a normal life has just become overwhelming. I just want to leave.”
Their last day at the Inn will be on 16 June – which also happens to be Lyndsay’s 48th birthday. She has been in the licensed trade for 26 years.
“I think I’ve done long enough. It’s just sad because I’ve made this pub exactly as I wanted it. I’m just tired.”
Suit a younger couple
Lyndsay fully refurbished the pub last year. Thwaites are now looking for new tenants. “It’s a fabulous business,” she said. “If a younger couple could come in with a really good work ethic, they could make it work.
“It’s just we were getting too old for it.”
Thwaites says: “Trade at the Inn on the Green mainly centres around entertainment and live music.
“The pub is located at the edge of the green where local people gather and families enjoy the play facilities so is an ideal stopping point for drinks and food.
“There is currently a tapas style food offer which is very popular. The interior of the pub is open plan, two areas with a central bar ideal for drinking and dining space.”
The rent is £22,000 based on a full tie. The pub is offered on a five year tenancy. If you’re interested, you can find out more here.
“They do say they’ve got quite a bit of interest and I have had quite a few people come to have a look at it,” Lyndsay said. “So I’m hoping somebody does take it on because for me, for this to close will be heartbreaking. absolutely heartbreaking.”
Ran top York pubs
Lyndsay, a former nurse, met Stu when she went to work at Ye Olde Starre Inn on Stonegate in 1998 and he was the pub’s assistant manager.
He then became manager at the Golden Lion on Church Street. “We had a fabulous time in there. It was his first pub, and the children were all babies.”
Stuart was York’s youngest licensee at the time, aged just 24.
When legendary landlord Bill Embleton retired from Ye Olde Starre Inn the Westons went back as managers.
Their first tenancy was at the Fox Inn on Holgate Road in 2008, before a spell at the Cross Keys on Tadcaster Road.
Lynsday and Stuart, 49, were then asked to take over the Knavesmire on South Bank. She said when they first saw the pub in 2013 “it was an absolute dump” but Stu talked her into going.
“And thank god he did because we had the best ten years ever there – we changed it around, made it nicer and cleaner and introduced tapas and pizzas.”
But when electricity prices went through the roof it became unaffordable, so they let the lease go. And that’s when they took over at the Inn On The Green.
After leaving the Inn, “I’m going to hopefully have a bit of quiet time,” Lyndsay said. She also runs a property company and Stuart will continue to work at Ainsty Ales.
But she doesn’t rule out getting a part time job – “probably in a bar because I’ll miss it!”