Kilmichael Glassary

Ben Fogle spends a year following Paul, Toni and daughter Harriet as they risk everything to buy a rundown pub in a remote village in the beautiful wilds of Scotland, with no experience of working in a pub, in a place they have only ever visited on holiday, and as the hospitality industry faces the greatest challenge in its history with Covid lockdown. Desperate to spend more time together as a family, Paul and Toni quit their jobs in busy Rochester, Kent, sell their family home, and leave friends and family behind in Kent to restore and run a 200-year-old pub in the tiny Scottish village of Kilmichael Glassary in the heart of the remote and beautiful countryside of west Scotland. Paul was a car salesman for 25 years, selling premium cars and working long hours and weekends, while Toni was a part-time respite carer looking after people with disabilities. Neither of them has ever worked in hospitality. Paul has never pulled a pint, and he will be barman. Toni has only cooked family meals at home, and she will be chef for the dining area, cooking and managing a commercial kitchen, having never had any experience. But before the pair can even open the doors, the whole pub is in need of extensive renovation. The couple are on a very tight budget, and it's a race against time to get ready to open, so they can start getting an income to live off. They manage to open the bar, but the takings aren't enough to survive. It comes down to Toni's food. They get the kitchens and dining areas open by the end of the summer 2020, but Toni finds the next months cooking over 50 covers every night gruelling. Then autumn brings lockdowns due to the pandemic, which, in Scotland, means pubs closing all through the winter months. When Ben returns to visit a year after he first met them, will the family still be in business?