Operating on the outskirts of London since 793, the English pub Ye Olde Fighting Cocks has survived many crises throughout its history — wars, plagues, famines, famines — but not the Covid-10 pandemic.
The establishment, which calls itself the oldest pub in England, has closed “after an ongoing period of extremely challenging business conditions”, the owner announced in a statement posted on Facebook.
According to Christo Tofalli, even before 2020 the situation was already difficult, due to “increasingly higher taxes and fees”. He wrote: “We managed to survive, we made an exciting plan for the next five years, and we were hopeful for the future. But the Covid-19 pandemic was devastating, and our already tight profit margin didn’t give us any coverage.”
The alleged 1,229-year-old owner of the pub has only run the business for the past ten years and says he is heartbroken, having tried everything to keep the pub in St Albans open.
The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has decreed several periods of lockdown throughout the pandemic, with the closure of pubs and other commercial establishments, to try to contain the spread of the virus and the explosion of cases and deaths by Covid in the United Kingdom. The country is one of the leaders in victims of the disease, with almost 160 thousand deaths, less only than the USA, Brazil, India and Russia.
According to Tofalli, told the American newspaper The Washington Post, a kind of last chance for the bar was given during the Christmas period, but the movement was far from what was expected – as the circulation of the omicron variant once again increased the number of cases and limited the number of cases. movement of people even without the establishment of very severe restrictions in the country.
The businessman said he fired 10 employees — at the height of his administration, 25 people even worked there, including temporary ones.
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks is named after the cock fights held there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Guinness Book even registered it as the oldest pub in England, but a spokeswoman for the publication told CNN that the record is inactive, as it has not been possible to definitively prove it.
According to British newspaper The Telegraph, more than 400 pubs closed in England and Wales in 2021, the second year of the pandemic.
Brewery Mitchells & Butlers, which owns the Ye Olde Fighting Cocks concession, said it will try to reopen the venue under new management.
The Washington Post reported that a virtual crowdfunding was organized on Monday to help save the bar, with the goal of raising 100,000 pounds sterling (R$ 712,000). Until the publication of this text, 2,500 had already been donated (about R$ 17,800).
“The pub is not dead, the closure is like a hibernation,” Tofalli told the publication. He said he needs an investor who thinks about the long term, to promote reforms that allow, for example, to increase accessibility. “Then it will be possible for the bar to survive another thousand years.”
