The pub is expected to close temporarily before being reopened by new owners
08:15, 26 Apr 2025Updated 08:57, 26 Apr 2025
Ye Cracke Pub on Rice Street(Image: Liverpool Echo)
This weekend marks the end of an era as Liverpool’s beloved Ye Cracke is expected to close temporarily before it is taken over by new owners. Earlier this month, the ECHO reported Ye Cracke has been sold.
The manager of the venue, which has stood on Rice Street in the Georgian Quarter since the 19th century, told the ECHO that it has been bought by new owners. She said that six staff would be out of work in the process, with their last day expected to be April 27 – this Sunday.
It has not been confirmed who has bought the pub and what will come next for what is a Liverpool institution. The ECHO understands the pub will close on Sunday for an as yet undefined period of time before it is reopened by new owners.
A pub has stood on its site on Rice Street for more than 150 years. Originally called The Ruthin Castle, Ye Cracke came to be in 1862, when the then landlord of the Ruthin Castle extended the premises by buying the cottage next door.
Historian Ken Pye’s book ‘Liverpool Pubs’ reveals that the venue was only nicknamed ‘Ye Cracke’ at that time, perhaps because of the narrow entrance alongside it. The pub is perhaps most famous for being John Lennon’s favourite spot for a beer when he was an arts student.
The Beatle’s drink of choice was a black velvet – made from Guinness and sparkling wine. It’s also where he took his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, on their first date after meeting her at a college dance.
A plaque on the wall of the pub also celebrates a further connection with the Fab Four. It was here in the late 1950s, John and fellow original Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe, alongside artist Rod Murray and writer Bill Harry formed the ‘The Dissenters’ – a group of art students who vowed to put Liverpool ‘on the map’ in their own way.
Ye Cracke on Rice Street, Liverpool.(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
In a letter written by a former employee of the pub about John, they said the former Beatle “could be a real pain at times”. Adding: “He would put his feet up on the tables just after we had polished them. The clean beer mats on the tables he would split in half, and as I thought, (he) was always writing poems on them.”
“I wish I would have known then what I know now. I would have held on to them instead of putting them in the bin.”
As well as Lennon, Ye Cracke can count another celebrity among its fans – Liverpool actor Jodie Comer. In an interview with British Vogue, Jodie lifted the lid on how she would spend 24 hours in Liverpool with her co-stars from one of her recent films ‘The Bikeriders’, and Ye Cracke got a special mention.
The movie also stars Austin Butler and Tom Hardy. When Jodie was describing how she’d spend a day with them in her home city, she said: “I’d have to take them to my mum’s for a roast dinner because my mum does the best roast.
“Then I was thinking a walk on the Albert Dock, maybe The Cracke up by Hope Street. They have a little jukebox in there, it’s very stripped back.”
The pub is one of the Georgian Quarter’s most popular. It is loved for its traditional bar areas and wood panelling. Its beer garden also has many fans and is a sun trap in the afternoons.
Among the pub’s side rooms is one called ‘The War Office’ furnished with red leatherette benches and is the oldest part of the pub. The War Office is a tiny snug where regulars and soldiers returning from the Boer War could meet to discuss military exploits without bothering the rest of the customers.