Café Tabac isn’t just any hospitality outlet – it has become a cultural institution in Liverpool – and now it has a new owner. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool’s best-known ‘bohemian’ outlet Café Tabac has changed hands and has joined growing hospitality business Ma Pub Group.
Established at the top of Bold Street, close to the Bombed Out Church, by Rita Lawrence in the 1970s, Café Tabac became a cultural institution in the city centre, distinguishing itself as a home for Liverpool’s creative vanguard.
Through the 1980s it became a destination for the city’s post-punk, new wave and alternative scenes, welcoming a generation of artists, musicians, writers and performers including Holly Johnson, Pete Burns, Margi Clarke and Ian McCulloch.
Now Ma Pub Group — the independent Liverpool hospitality operator behind Ma Boyle’s Alehouse and Eatery, Tempest on Tithebarn, Nova Scotia and Newington Temple — has acquired the landmark venue from its current owner Baa Bar.
This new chapter carries personal significance for Baa Bar chief executive Elaine Clarke. Ma Pub Group director Iain Hoskins began his hospitality career working with Elaine across the venues in the mid-1990s.
Now, three decades later, the stewardship returns to a former protégé — a full-circle moment in the venue’s storied history.
Elaine said: “I started in hospitality in Café Tabac at 14, and this place has been part of every chapter since — a constant I have cared about deeply and worked hard to keep true to its bohemian roots through all the changes Liverpool has seen.
“Most of all, I want to thank everyone who has been part of Tabac’s story. Our teams past and present, who have poured their energy, creativity and graft into keeping it alive.
“And our customers — loyal regulars from the eighties, the generations who followed, the new faces who discover us every week.
“Ma Pub Group has built a strong reputation for looking after their venues and their teams, and I know Iain will protect this place with the same heart, integrity and pride that have sustained it for half a century.”
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Iain Hoskins added: “Being entrusted with Café Tabac is an honour. It has been at the heart of Liverpool’s cultural landscape for decades and holds a huge place in the city’s memory. Like so many others, I have my own stories tied to this place.
“Tabac is one of the last living reminders of a Liverpool that shaped generations of creativity and character. To become its next custodian is a privilege I do not take lightly. My commitment is simple: it will remain the Tabac Liverpool knows and loves.”
All staff will be retained with the transition and Tabac will continue to trade with the same name, values and unmistakable character that have secured its place as one of Liverpool’s most loved, lived-in and long-standing city-centre fixtures.