Bristol community looking to buy their popular local Sunday roast pub

People living in a close-knit community famous for its colorful houses overlooking Bristol Harbor are to hold a public meeting to try to set up a charity or company to buy their local pub.

The Lion Tavern in Cliftonwood is a family-run pub in the heart of Bristol’s uplands, between Clifton and the harbour, and has struggled since the Covid pandemic and cost of living crisis.

It is owned by what a local support group described as a “big, off-shore company” but run by Fiona Vincent and her family. Now regulars and members of the Cliftonwood community are trying to gather enough support to buy the pub to ensure Fiona and her family can continue to run it.

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A public meeting has been called for Thursday 16th May at the Lion from 6.30pm with the aim of formally setting up a community interest company called The Lion Tavern Community Hub which could start to get funding together to buy the pub the as a community good.

The campaign has the support of Fiona and her family and those behind the campaign are calling on people in Cliftonwood and beyond to get involved. The idea is that local people will put money into the shares and then everyone will own a stake in the pub, which will be run for the community.

“This has been talked about for a long time, but the circumstances of COVID and post-COVID have really highlighted what a vital part of the community the pub is,” a spokesman said. “The Lion is currently owned by a large offshore company and is run by Fiona and Dave on a charter.

“Bringing the pub into community ownership would make the business more viable in a number of ways, not least being able to buy beer at a less expensive price, but it would also open up other opportunities for even greater community use.” , he added.

As well as being a great community asset, the Lion is also one of the UK’s most popular pubs – in October 2022 it was named the UK’s most popular Sunday lunch pub in a review by to the Raffle of over 30,000 TripAdvisor reviews.

This was great news at the time for the pub – just a month earlier owner Fiona had said she feared they might have to cut opening hours to save on electricity bills at the height of the cost of living crisis in 2022.