Jodie Kidd: ‘The secret to a good pub? Don't ignore the locals'

Telegraph

3 hours ago

'It was a moment of madness when I decided to get a pub,' laughs Jodie Kidd.
The locals in Kirdford, West Sussex, must certainly have thought so too when Kidd, a former model and socialite, swept in eight years ago. With no experience in the industry, never having worked in hospitality before, and the pub already facing closure, few could have anticipated the turnaround she made within the Half Moon.
'It was going to become houses,' she fumes. 'This beautiful 16th-century coaching inn could have been lost forever, and that would have stripped the heart out of this village.
'I have lived rurally for most of my life, and in these little villages the pub is the epicentre of village life,' says Kidd. 'They are community centres. Pubs are places where friendships are formed, relationships happen, families meet – they are such important places for the community.'
Having become a champion for the pub industry during the turbulent days of Covid and the ensuing cost of living crisis, Kidd recently hit the road to meet other landlords for a new podcast, Three Landlords Walk into a Bar. Created with Heineken SmartDispense, she and Merlin Griffiths (the bartender from Channel 4's First Dates) interview the landlords of some of Britain's most popular boozers to find out what sets a great pub apart.
'I've learnt so much because out of everyone who appeared on the podcast, I was one of the newest publicans, with only a mere eight years in the industry,' she explains. 'And it's interesting because there's no sense of competitiveness, publicans are like one big family and we all have things to learn from each other about what works and what doesn't work.'
The reason pub landlords are relying on each other for advice and support, Kidd thinks, is that the pub trade is, if not quite on its last legs, not far off. 'We got to a point where we were losing three pubs a day, which is terrifying,' she says. 'I hate the idea that in my son's lifetime the Great British pub will come to an end. It would be an absolute travesty.'
But it's not all doom and gloom, Kidd adds. 'Doing the podcast has been lovely because landlords are succeeding in creating brilliant pubs, despite the conditions,' she beams.
So what is the secret to creating a great pub and, crucially, keeping the doors open?
'One thing common to all great pubs is that they're a place of safety,' says Kidd. 'A pub should be a place where you feel relaxed, somewhere which is a safe place where people will listen, a place where you feel happy to go up and talk to other people. Essentially a great pub is a home away from home. That's an important thing to create.'
The key to that is the personal approach, and Kidd is clear on one thing: locals must come first. 'You're very much part of their lives and it's a really, genuinely important thing,' she says. 'Mental health, especially after Covid when we were all locked away, is in the gutter. People really value conversation now. Knowing that you've got someone there who will take the time to talk to you, who will support you, that makes all the difference in the world.
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'We have a lovely chap who is around 80 who lost his wife during Covid and hasn't got any family. Every day he comes in and he has his own seat in his own little corner, we all go and chat with him – that might be the only face-to-face communication that he gets in a day, so it's so important to prioritise connections like that.'
The most important way to generate this atmosphere is to instil it in the pub staff, thinks Kidd. 'You need to have that energy and approachability, and we try to instil that into our team members, especially front of house,' she says.
'It's hard graft – it's long days on your feet, and you might be tired, you might have blisters, but you always have to go to work with a big smile on your face. You still have to take time to talk to people and make people feel important. It's a really good life lesson, especially because we try to train a lot of local young people from the village. Leading by example matters.'
The simplest thing to do is to be attentive, says Kidd. 'I don't think this is a complicated thing,' she shrugs. 'You just have to make it seamless. When people come in, they need to be noticed, taken to a table, have their order taken in good time, glasses cleared and refilled when they need them to be. Some pubs say they can't afford enough staff to do that – I would say you can't afford to leave people waiting.'
In an era where the price of a pint has swelled to a national average of £5.17 as of June 2025 (according to the The MA Pint Price Survey), landlords also need to be conscious that a trip to the pub is more of a treat than the everyday occurrence it might once have been.
'When someone comes in and they're spending upwards of £5 on a pint, they need to have a blinking good one,' Kidd argues. 'We have really invested in technology to make sure every pint we pour is perfect, and we do really see our customers appreciate that. Whatever you're serving, it's got to be perfect. Everything has got to be, because we totally realise that going out and spending money is tough.
'What's happening with the cost of living is not easy for anyone, but people need to be able to go out and spoil themselves as well. If people have worked hard, they need to have the places to go where they can have a nice meal and a nice pint and we need to make sure that when they do, we are able to offer them the very best quality to make sure what we're offering is worthy of our customers. That has absolutely put a lot of pressure on us to make sure that we constantly deliver a level of quality.'
For village pubs like Kidd's Half Moon, where local footfall is rarely enough to sustain a pub, becoming a 'destination' with the help of a good menu is vital.
'One part of my ethos is supporting our local fisherman, farmers and producers,' Kidd explains. 'Pretty much everything we get is from a 25-mile radius, which supports much smaller producers. We're lucky because we have the coast – which means we can have some beautiful Selsey crab – and we have the South Downs, so we have beautiful heritage tomatoes and asparagus growers. It's really important for us to make sure we're not only supporting the customer but also the supply chain.
'If I go to a pub and see the menu is like ours: super seasonal, constantly changing based on what ingredients are available, I know I'm in for a good time.'
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Ultimately, Kidd thinks, what makes a pub great and well-run is fairly obvious to landlords and customers alike; what has made things more difficult in recent years are the regulations.
'The beer tax is one of the highest in Europe,' she says. 'Sainsbury's can offset the price of beer to tomatoes or whatever they're going to do – we don't have that option. That puts pressure on the whole industry. We are constantly having to battle with business rates, alcohol duty, and attracting customers, and the Government can't even be bothered to have a hospitality minister to represent a sector which contributes billions to the economy? I don't understand it.'
Though the challenges remain great – the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) reported 289 closures, with 4,500 job losses in the sector in 2024 – Kidd remains committed to the fight.
'Pubs are such an important place for the community, for mental health, for life satisfaction,' she says. 'A pub is so much more than a place you go to eat and drink, it's part of the fabric of our country, it's our heritage, it's our future, so we have to keep fighting for it.'