Siblings opened pub with '£10 in bank' after idea in back of cab

Three siblings opened a pub with "about £10 in the bank" after coming up with the idea in the back of a London cab. Ben, Caitlin and Jack Helme own The Tin Shed in Formby, a micropub specialising in real ale.

It opened April 12, 2021 - the first day that drinking at pubs was re-permitted after another covid lockdown. With the help of their mum Carolyn, the trio run the bar alongside their day jobs.

The ECHO visited The Tin Shed this week to speak to Ben and Carolyn, during the day of the Formby Christmas lights switch-on. They're "expecting it to get busy" later on.

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Situated on Brows Lane, the pub gets a lot of footfall from "a mixture of different types of people, including regulars who come in after work and regulars who come in at the weekend," Carolyn said. However, the mum told us that being in the real ale guides means that they are also often visited from afar.

She continued: "People have really enjoyed the real ale offering and we get people here who have travelled from afar. There was one time when it was 1.50pm - we didn’t open until 3pm - but it was raining really badly. There was a knock on the door so I looked outside and there was about 20 men standing there.

"I opened the door and said ‘can I help you?’ They said: ‘Look, I know this is really cheeky but we’re from Derbyshire and we’ve started our pub crawl’. I told them I’d just mopped the floor so I don’t want any claims if they fall, and I’d also never pulled a pint - but one of the men showed me how."

The Tin Shed has earned a good reputation in Formby over the past three years, but where did the idea for it come from? Ben said: “Basically, we just like ale. My dad used to take me to the Beer Station by Freshfield Station, so ever since we were kids, my dad had me on real ale rather than lager.

"We’d always spoken about possibly opening a pub, and this place was an idea in the back of a taxi in London. A few years later, covid happened; my brother was in Australia, working in the circus, and had a week to get home, otherwise he was stuck there. When he got here we thought: ‘Right, we don’t know when he’s going back’; it’s always something we’d spoken about and the next minute we were in too deep so we had to go through with it.

"We opened with about £10 in the bank and had a very good first day, which settled the nerves a bit. My sister was the only one who’d worked in a bar, so she was pouring pints; my brother was on dishwashing duty. We didn’t have enough tables in the end so we had people sitting on barrels and bringing camping chairs."

The Tin Shed, like an increasing number of pubs, doesn't have a pool table or fruit machine, instead relying on good old conversation for entertainment. Carolyn said: “I think the most important thing is people having conversations when they come to the pub, and lots of people come in here to chat. It is what it is, and it is a lovely little pub; it’s not all singing and all dancing but it’s a great place to be - so I’m told"

The pub's real ale selection has earned it a beer score of three on CAMRA - the highest possible score. Ben said: "In terms of the ale, we try to keep it as local as possible, but quite a few local ones have unfortunately ceased to exist since we opened."

The Tin Shed is located on 60 Brows Lane, Formby, L37 4ED. For more information, click here.