The Tab Talks to The Maypole

You just celebrated your 30 year anniversary – why do you think that this pub has been successful for so long, especially among Cambridge students? 

I’m pretty sure that we are the only free house which is family run in the area. So while we might not be the cheapest place we can kinda get to know customers as they come in. My dad is a really outgoing, friendly person so when the students first started coming here, he made them feel really welcome and over the years it has slowly built. Now loads of the students kind of see it as their local place. It’s the same people behind the bar so there is continuity, and you get to know people. We get alumni coming back maybe 20 years later and they like that we still recognise them.

The famous Cambridge watering hole

What is the typical Cambridge attendee?

We get a real diversity. We get a lot of actors and comedians from the ADC. We’ve seen lots of famous people as regulars here. I know David Mitchell very well and he used come in here all the time and write his comedy sketches. He actually talks about the Maypole and our family in his autobiography. He used to meet Richard Ayoade, from the IT Crowd, here and they’d work on sketches together. Lots of sports people as well. Even though this isn’t specifically a student pub, I think students see it as a safe place to come, with a good atmosphere at the weekends when they maybe don’t want to venture into Spoons.

Dream team

What is the Tab’s relationship with The Maypole?

The Tab was actually started in the Maypole – this was where they had all their meetings. I remember when they were doing one of their early editions, they asked if they could shoot a few photos in the pub on a Sunday. I wasn’t working then so I just said yes. It turns out that they were taking photos of a half naked girl lying across the bar for ‘Top Totties’. It actually made the Daily Mirror. Also, I didn’t know this, but on their website they put the Maypole as their contact number, because they didn’t really have one. I actually got a couple calls from a Canadian guy trying to reach them, and they told me that he was a porn director who had seen the photos and was trying to get in touch with them! I don’t know… maybe they were lying, but it was pretty funny.

Obviously you must find some of your customers get pretty ‘tipsy’ – do any of these people stick out particularly in your mind? 

There are none that really stick out, most of the students behave pretty well here. We did used to allow swaps but we’ve stopped that. It wasn’t really worth it. People would turn up really drunk or try and strip at the table and we would just stop them or ask them to leave. Sometimes they’d make bookings and never turn up. There were certain colleges and sports which we blacklisted, who tried to book under aliases but we would just refuse them entry when they arrived. They even used to have initiations in here, and in other pubs. They obviously couldn’t do anything especially outrageous or degrading but they would always consume a lot of alcohol, a lot of dirty pints. Saying that, about 75% of the students did just come to have a really good time, without getting obliterated.

Do you ever see yourself leaving?

No, not these days. I have four children, so I’m sure one of them will want to take over it. I hope it remains a family-run business. You never know what will happen but we’re fairly successful so hopefully we’ll be here for a while.

Stop by The Maypole during their Beer Festival between 19th and 23rd February, which will feature live entertainment from Cambridge favourite, The Gentlemen of John’s.