Amir Matinahmadi spent more than £150,000 bringing the Park Tavern back to life, working out of his own pocket alongside two business partners who did the same. One, a builder, and another, a chef, worked without pay for months to revive the much-loved pub which had fallen into disrepair.
“It’s your second living room,” he tells us, outlining his philosophy about public houses. Locals, he says, need to feel the same way. The previous landlord hit on hard times and the result was that it didn’t always open and stopped serving food, all while repairs mounted. “Everybody lost faith in the pub and nobody came here anymore,” he says.
He runs two other pubs, including the William Morris next to the river Wandle in Merton, so he knew what he was taking on. “I told the estate manager: we don’t expect it to make any money for the next two to three years. We need to build it, invest in it.”
When they opened, he says they were met with immediate warmth from the community: “I’ll never forget the day we took her over. It was rammed, with everybody saying we’re happy you took it over. But you need to develop a trust with the venue before you come back again.”
The initial burst slowed, with some days taking in just £100 – “not even enough to turn on the lights.” It wasn’t yet a part of people’s lives. “It took a while: hosting quiz nights with not even a team to play, or music nights when there’s not a single person to listen. We were struggling.”
But slowly things started picking up. He bought food from local shops, even though it cost two-thirds more than wholesale prices; when a new pizza shop opened, he offered his outside space for a pop-up to help them get on their feet. “We’re so much about community because pubs have to be that. So hosting any event that the community wants for free. Hosting charity events for the schools for free.”
As more people remembered the pub, with its historic interior, cosy feel and big pub garden – by London standards – things started looking up. Meanwhile, he continued fixing things behind the scenes. There was no working fire alarm. Water came through the bar ceiling, and the drains hadn’t been cleared in a decade. The kitchen extractor didn’t work. Decking in the back had gone rotten. And the rooms above the pub – where staff live in order to make working in a pub affordable – were uninhabitable. The owners of the pub – Star Pubs & Bars – told him the electrics had been checked and were good. They need to be replaced. But after nearly two years of hard work, things were starting to turn around.
And then, six weeks ago, on 15 June, he got a letter from Star Pubs informing him that the pub’s 30-year lease had expired and they considered him a “tenant at will”, rather than a leaseholder. A second letter arrived on 6 July telling him he must vacate the pub by 5 August.
“Star is your landlord of the Premises which you occupy as a tenant at will… We hereby provide written notice that our client is terminating the Tenancy … Our client is willing to permit you to remain in occupation until 5 August 2026 for the purposes of yielding up. Should you fail to vacate, our client reserves its right to take enforcement action against you for your unlawful occupation as a trespasser.”
He was stunned. The pub’s long-term lease had in fact expired – he knew that – and he knew its expiration date when he bought into the lease with 18 months left. But under the law (the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954), he cannot just be evicted. He is entitled to apply to have the lease extended. He had been in negotiations for months over what that would look like. And part of the reason he had been spending so much time and money fixing up the upper rooms was because Star Pubs told him that would be a condition of any extension.
“If you go upstairs and see the quality of the work, it’s like a hotel,” Matinahmadi says of the restoration. He invites us up: it’s a tall old building, quite tight at the top, that has clearly not been well looked after for decades – the windows need replacing, the paint is peeling, the carpet’s a little shabby – but he shows us where the floorboards have been replaced, a bathroom refitted, a shared space expanded. It’s not exactly a hotel but a staff member who lives in one of the rooms shows us a video she took when she first moved in. Among other things, the radiator was coming off the wall.
Downstairs is, however, special: the building’s 1902 interior, designed by T.H. Nowell Parr, is rated “Two Star” by CAMRA and described as being of “very special national historic interest.” It’s a centrepiece of the pub, including a stone fireplace that wouldn’t be out of place in an English Heritage home – but even that needed work to make it safe.
Star Pubs claims the work upstairs is sub-standard; a claim Amir vehemently disputes: it was done by his partner, a builder by trade, and they are in process of getting it signed off by the council. The company reps began questioning whether the works were authorised. Amir told them to listen back to the tapes of their earlier meetings (Star Pubs meetings with their leaseholders are recorded as a matter of course). They came back and confirmed it, he says.
Star told Putney.news in a statement: “Whilst we will not discuss the specific details of the operator’s business arrangements in public, we can confirm that it is not possible for them to remain at the pub due to serious issues that cannot be ignored during their tenure.”
Matinahmadi says the pub’s hygiene rating has gone from three stars when his company – MFM Pub Group – took over to five, confirmed twice, and that Star’s own secret-shopper checks now rate it among its better-performing venues for service. Local MP Fleur Anderson is said to be a fan of the food.
Star Pubs told us it already has “interest from operators keen to take it on once it is vacated” and plans to reopen “as soon as possible after having undertaken some essential repairs.”
Residents and councillors will meet at the pub tonight, Friday 24 June, at 5pm to discuss what can be done. All are welcome.
The legal fight
Star’s solicitors, Pinsent Masons, told MFM in its July letter that they were only “tenants at will” and so can be told to vacate with a month’s notice. MFM disputes this. Its solicitors argued the lease remains a protected business tenancy that cannot be ended by a common law notice to quit.
The law appears to sit with MFM and Amir: the 1996 lease is quite clear and the 1954 Act’s rights has to be actively signed away by a pub manager. But large corporations have learned that those legal protections can be plowed through if sufficient pressure is applied.
The exact same thing happened last year with The Kitchen cafe at Putney Leisure Centre. The owner, Jeannine Angel was amazed when she was ordered to shut down the kitchen over a claimed hygiene infraction – she was then sent an email telling her she agreed to shut the cafe. The Leisure Centre is due to undergo a massive renovation, including a new cafe, and The Kitchen wasn’t part of their plans.
Angel fought back, suing both the council and the leisure centre’s operator Places Leisure, asserting her rights under the same 1954 Act: legal rights the operator had tried to pressure her into signing away. But after five months of pressure and legal bills she relented and reached a settlement which she was legally prevented from disclosing but which, she says, didn’t even cover what she had put into the business over a decade. The cafe closed in March and there remains no food or drink beyond snack machines at the Leisure Centre.
In the case of The Kitchen, the Leisure Centre is due to undergo a massive renovation but in the case of the Park Tavern, its current managers – Amir and MFM Pub Group – have rescued a pub that was falling apart, so why is Star trying to push them out?
We have asked Star Pubs twice whether the 1954 Act applies and it has failed to answer the question twice, while responding to other questions.
Its solicitors served a section 25 notice in November 2025, a step that itself treats the tenancy as protected. Star’s solicitors now contend, however, that the lease ended in June and that the operators occupied only under a tenancy at will carrying no such protection, a position the operators reject.
Legally, the question may hang on whether MFM responded in the correct way to the Section 25 notice; Amir says there were active negotiations going on about extending the lease at the time, and that in itself could be used as evidence of bad faith on Star’s part.
MFM has since replied with their equivalent of the Section 25 notice – a section 26 notice – but things have now entered the hands of the lawyers, and all direct discussions with the Star representations have ceased.
Beer, bonds and a £200,000 question
Things had started to break down before that. Earlier this month, Star refused to provided the Park Tavern with any beer. The place is what is called a “tied pub” meaning that it has to buy its beer (but often not bottles) from the company that ultimately owns it. That’s why you will typically find the same beers in different pubs – they are owned by the same brewery.
As a tied pub you not only have to pay in advance but if you are caught buying anyone else’s beer, they can fine you for doing so. Star Pubs cut Amir off on 13 July, citing back rent. Without beer, a pub can’t survive, so he bought some in. And then was fined £3,500 for doing so. The day after we contacted Star Pubs asking for an explanation, Amir told us he received an email saying it was supplying him again.
Star has form in this area: in 2020 it was fined £2m, later reduced to £1.25m, for what regulators found were serious and repeated breaches of the Pubs Code protecting tied tenants.
Other pressures are being brought to bear. MFM say a repair bond of £13,974, taken when MFM signed the lease, has since been recast as a claim exceeding £200,000. Amir says the figure represents what Star has told him it would cost to reinstate the upstairs works, to cover a licensing technicality: Star wants MFM to obtain an HMO licence for the staff living above the pub, even though Wandsworth Council has told MFM this is not required for staff accommodation.
What he’s put in, and what happens next
Matinahmadi believes he knows why this is happening. “Getting me out means that they will have a vacant pub that a landlord can then take over and let it out at market rate,” he says. His rent is currently £55,000 a year, fixed under the existing tenancy. “It’s about as dark as you can get, when it comes to corporate behaviour.”
The pub can indeed expect to get double what it currently receives if the lease is open. It could also sell the freehold of the pub itself, which is worth millions.
He is careful to separate the company from the person he deals with day to day. “He’s been a gentleman to us,” he says of the rep. But above him, Amir says the attitude is unforgiving: “Tough. You should have known what you were doing.”
Putney MP Fleur Anderson has written to Star’s managing director and to the Pubs Code Adjudicator, asking whether Star’s conduct is “consistent with the central principle of the Pubs Code that tied pub tenants should be treated fairly and lawfully.” An online petition to save the pub has gathered around 600 signatures. At Wandsworth’s full council meeting on Wednesday night, Cllr Jasmin Glynne, whose East Putney ward includes the pub, presented a separate paper petition signed by 500 residents, telling councillors she wanted “to put on the record the strength of feeling in the community that the Park Tavern pub in my ward should remain under its current management.”
Putney.news put nine detailed questions to Star two days ago. We have yet to hear back.
Matinahmadi says he is weighing a legal fundraiser if the dispute goes to court, where the cheapest quote he has received so far is £15,000. He says he does not want to ask supporters for money “until I know I have to.” MFM intends to refer the dispute to the Pubs Code Adjudicator in early August. Star’s solicitors are due to respond to MFM’s lawyers on 4 August, one day before the date Star has set for the operators to vacate the pub Matinahmadi rebuilt.
A public meeting will take place at the Park Tavern, 212 Merton Rd, London SW18 5SW, tonight, Friday 24 July at 5pm to discuss what options exist to help the man who turned a beloved but faltering pub back into a neighbourhood gem. All are welcome.
