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How the Samuel Smith beer baron built Britain's strangest pub chain

101 points by rwmj 2y ago

vr46 2y ago
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.
- jamespo 2y ago
  I could not imagine spending all night in a Sam Smiths pub. Particularly on my birthday.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    Maybe in the Cheshire Cheese. I swear years ago the Sam Smiths cider used to be hallucinogenic. And the other stuff they serve is definitely a bit curious.
    - westi 2y ago
      Been there, done that ;) tis a gem of a pub
    - vr46 2y ago
      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.
  - afandian 2y ago
    There's one in my town. It's a nice, very popular old-school pub. It's a relief not to have a TV on in the corner.
  - lores 2y ago
    Those pubs are seriously lovely, though. A bit too busy, but they look grand.
- dcminter 2y ago
  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!
- zabzonk 2y ago
  > 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.
  - vr46 2y ago
    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.
  - lproven 2y ago
    > Well, I have, because you can't get proper Guinness there An ex-GF of mine complained about that very pub, 25 years ago, for the very same reason. > only Smith's inferior substitute. She was wrong, and you are too. Guinness is an indifferent to bland stout and the Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout is a vastly better example of the style. Widen your palate, learn to appreciate variety and diversity, and recognise that brands are your enemy, in beer just as much as in social networks or political parties. Slavish loyalty to any brand is rank foolishness. Even if you do like it, your life will be better if you learn more about the wider options.
    - zabzonk 2y ago
      i have no "slavish loyalty" to anything - i just like the taste, as presumably your gf did as well. i do not like the smith's stout. and i think i have drunk enough beers in my 70-odd years to know what i like!
      - lproven 2y ago
        What do you think of Murphy's or Beamish?
    - alexjplant 2y ago
      > Guinness is an indifferent to bland stout and the Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout is a vastly better example of the style. For what it's worth I agree with you but this is a non-starter for most people even in the US. I briefly tended bar someplace that specialized in higher-end, small-batch products; we didn't stock any of the usual suspects and if somebody asked for a Guinness we'd have them try the craft stout that we had on tap. The majority of the time people wouldn't be into it because "it's not Guinness"... not because "[they] don't like it", but because it isn't the exact thing that they have been drinking for the past 30 years of their life. Grey Goose and Crown Royal drinkers were the worst offenders in this regard. Triple-filtered Polish potato vodka at 1/3 the price? No way - too cheap. Organic single-grain wheat whiskey? Not today - it's a Crown and Diet, not a whatever-the-heck-this-is and Diet! Also can they have the purple velvet bag since the bottle is already open? All of these exchanges went towards my realization that for this crowd of people it's more about the ritual than the taste. If something is decent and consistent enough to provide familiar respite in a chaotic world then it serves a noble purpose. Just because I'm a hipster doesn't mean everybody else has to be too.
- kjs3 2y ago
  I went to the Cittie of York first time I was in the City (many, many years ago) and remember thinking "this platonic ideal of the cosy, perfect English pub I've been told about my whole life...it's fucking real". Good times.
madaxe_again 2y ago
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.
- lysace 2y ago
  Eccentric success - even if accidental - is more interesting than cookie cutter MBA min-maxing.
  - kasey_junk 2y ago
    Love to succeed at being born rich.
    - User23 2y ago
      A shockingly high number of people born rich manage to lose it all.
  - lmm 2y ago
    All UK businesses these days are property investment funds with a lesser or greater amount of ornamental embellishment. And since it's illegal to build anything (at least if anyone cares to challenge your planning applications, as per the article), it will probably stay that way for a while.
    - lysace 2y ago
      That's depressive.
amiga386 2y ago
> 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. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oDZB-ZyvTE
- notahacker 2y ago
  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
  - fakedang 2y ago
    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.
    - scns 2y ago
      The pubs in London are managed by his son, not him.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
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. Magic is truly still alive.
- jerlam 2y ago
  The owner is so rich that he doesn't care about keeping any of the pubs open.
fakedang 2y ago
> 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.
MortyWaves 2y ago
What a grotesque man
neilv 2y ago
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?
- afandian 2y ago
  It's a real brewery and has been going for a long time. The rules are just frozen in time.
- pinebox 2y ago
  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.
  - mapt 2y ago
    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.
throwaway2562 2y ago
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. https://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2024/10/passing-on-torch.html https://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2024/10/passing-on-torch....
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  His son runs the London ones already.
- stuaxo 2y ago
  Ok, but measuring chain pubs is a low bar. The beer is a bit weird, and I always would get a headache, and the wine selection is decidedly 1980s.
kjgkjhfkjf 2y ago
Seems like Humphrey Smith cannot handle his beer.
raffraffraff 2y ago
He's a wanker. Which is a pity because Samuel Smith Chocolate Stout the best of it's kind. A truly amazing brew.
- Angostura 2y ago
  Worse than the wanker who owns Weatherspoons?
intalentive 2y ago
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.
- petesergeant 2y ago
  You’d probably not feel that way in a village who’s pub was owned by him and had been shuttered
  - DiggyJohnson 2y ago
    Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
  - toast0 2y ago
    If the old pub is closed indefinitely, why not open a new one?
    - petesergeant 2y ago
      That’s not really how planning works in British villages
      - lmm 2y ago
        Or towns, or cities. Maybe it takes a rich yorkshireman to show how crazy the British planning laws are, but they've been crazy for decades.
    - psd1 2y ago
      Why does Ross, the largest Friend, not simply eat the other Friends?
- antonvs 2y ago
  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.
mehh 2y ago
Been swearing in Sam Smiths for 20+ years and never had a problem!
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  Wait till he reads this comment…you’ll be banned and the pubs shut down!
  - mehh 2y ago
    It will probably really wind the old git up reading that despite all he his best efforts, I never even realised it wasn’t allowed, wanker (that’s just in case he reads this)!
CAPSLOCKSSTUCK 2y ago
Wow, he's so much more eccentric than I imagined, like a real-life Scrooge.
LordN00b 2y ago
If money was short and you weren't worried about the incendiary hangover that would surely come, then a trip to the Wortley Arms (Aka The Dirty Squirtly) in Peterborough was on the cards. Even the smell of their Ayingerbräu (Anger brow the next morning), causes my head to throb a little. Later I was stunned to find the same absurdly cheap prices in Soho and a fairly decent Sunday Roast in their Notting Hill outpost.

101 points by rwmj 2y ago

vr46 2y ago

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.

jamespo 2y ago
I could not imagine spending all night in a Sam Smiths pub. Particularly on my birthday.
- fidotron 2y ago
  Maybe in the Cheshire Cheese. I swear years ago the Sam Smiths cider used to be hallucinogenic. And the other stuff they serve is definitely a bit curious.
  - westi 2y ago
    Been there, done that ;) tis a gem of a pub
  - vr46 2y ago
    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.
- afandian 2y ago
  There's one in my town. It's a nice, very popular old-school pub. It's a relief not to have a TV on in the corner.
- lores 2y ago
  Those pubs are seriously lovely, though. A bit too busy, but they look grand.
dcminter 2y ago
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!
zabzonk 2y ago
> 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.
- vr46 2y ago
  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.
- lproven 2y ago
  > Well, I have, because you can't get proper Guinness there An ex-GF of mine complained about that very pub, 25 years ago, for the very same reason. > only Smith's inferior substitute. She was wrong, and you are too. Guinness is an indifferent to bland stout and the Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout is a vastly better example of the style. Widen your palate, learn to appreciate variety and diversity, and recognise that brands are your enemy, in beer just as much as in social networks or political parties. Slavish loyalty to any brand is rank foolishness. Even if you do like it, your life will be better if you learn more about the wider options.
  - zabzonk 2y ago
    i have no "slavish loyalty" to anything - i just like the taste, as presumably your gf did as well. i do not like the smith's stout. and i think i have drunk enough beers in my 70-odd years to know what i like!
    - lproven 2y ago
      What do you think of Murphy's or Beamish?
  - alexjplant 2y ago
    > Guinness is an indifferent to bland stout and the Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout is a vastly better example of the style. For what it's worth I agree with you but this is a non-starter for most people even in the US. I briefly tended bar someplace that specialized in higher-end, small-batch products; we didn't stock any of the usual suspects and if somebody asked for a Guinness we'd have them try the craft stout that we had on tap. The majority of the time people wouldn't be into it because "it's not Guinness"... not because "[they] don't like it", but because it isn't the exact thing that they have been drinking for the past 30 years of their life. Grey Goose and Crown Royal drinkers were the worst offenders in this regard. Triple-filtered Polish potato vodka at 1/3 the price? No way - too cheap. Organic single-grain wheat whiskey? Not today - it's a Crown and Diet, not a whatever-the-heck-this-is and Diet! Also can they have the purple velvet bag since the bottle is already open? All of these exchanges went towards my realization that for this crowd of people it's more about the ritual than the taste. If something is decent and consistent enough to provide familiar respite in a chaotic world then it serves a noble purpose. Just because I'm a hipster doesn't mean everybody else has to be too.
kjs3 2y ago
I went to the Cittie of York first time I was in the City (many, many years ago) and remember thinking "this platonic ideal of the cosy, perfect English pub I've been told about my whole life...it's fucking real". Good times.

madaxe_again 2y ago

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.

lysace 2y ago
Eccentric success - even if accidental - is more interesting than cookie cutter MBA min-maxing.
- kasey_junk 2y ago
  Love to succeed at being born rich.
  - User23 2y ago
    A shockingly high number of people born rich manage to lose it all.
- lmm 2y ago
  All UK businesses these days are property investment funds with a lesser or greater amount of ornamental embellishment. And since it's illegal to build anything (at least if anyone cares to challenge your planning applications, as per the article), it will probably stay that way for a while.
  - lysace 2y ago
    That's depressive.

amiga386 2y ago

> 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. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oDZB-ZyvTE

notahacker 2y ago
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
- fakedang 2y ago
  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.
  - scns 2y ago
    The pubs in London are managed by his son, not him.

kelseyfrog 2y ago

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. Magic is truly still alive.

jerlam 2y ago
The owner is so rich that he doesn't care about keeping any of the pubs open.

fakedang 2y ago

> 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.

MortyWaves 2y ago

What a grotesque man

neilv 2y ago

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?

afandian 2y ago
It's a real brewery and has been going for a long time. The rules are just frozen in time.
pinebox 2y ago
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.
- mapt 2y ago
  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.

throwaway2562 2y ago

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. https://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2024/10/passing-on-torch.html https://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2024/10/passing-on-torch....

philipwhiuk 2y ago
His son runs the London ones already.
stuaxo 2y ago
Ok, but measuring chain pubs is a low bar. The beer is a bit weird, and I always would get a headache, and the wine selection is decidedly 1980s.

kjgkjhfkjf 2y ago

Seems like Humphrey Smith cannot handle his beer.

raffraffraff 2y ago

He's a wanker. Which is a pity because Samuel Smith Chocolate Stout the best of it's kind. A truly amazing brew.

Angostura 2y ago
Worse than the wanker who owns Weatherspoons?

intalentive 2y ago

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.

petesergeant 2y ago
You’d probably not feel that way in a village who’s pub was owned by him and had been shuttered
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago
  Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
- toast0 2y ago
  If the old pub is closed indefinitely, why not open a new one?
  - petesergeant 2y ago
    That’s not really how planning works in British villages
    - lmm 2y ago
      Or towns, or cities. Maybe it takes a rich yorkshireman to show how crazy the British planning laws are, but they've been crazy for decades.
  - psd1 2y ago
    Why does Ross, the largest Friend, not simply eat the other Friends?
antonvs 2y ago
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.

mehh 2y ago

Been swearing in Sam Smiths for 20+ years and never had a problem!

shermantanktop 2y ago
Wait till he reads this comment…you’ll be banned and the pubs shut down!
- mehh 2y ago
  It will probably really wind the old git up reading that despite all he his best efforts, I never even realised it wasn’t allowed, wanker (that’s just in case he reads this)!

CAPSLOCKSSTUCK 2y ago

Wow, he's so much more eccentric than I imagined, like a real-life Scrooge.

LordN00b 2y ago

If money was short and you weren't worried about the incendiary hangover that would surely come, then a trip to the Wortley Arms (Aka The Dirty Squirtly) in Peterborough was on the cards. Even the smell of their Ayingerbräu (Anger brow the next morning), causes my head to throb a little. Later I was stunned to find the same absurdly cheap prices in Soho and a fairly decent Sunday Roast in their Notting Hill outpost.