[clarification needed] The launch party on 5 December 1967 was attended by Lennon, George Harrison and their wives, as well as Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Cilla Black and Kenneth Tynan, who were all sipping apple juice as the shop had no alcohol licence.

Pattie Harrison was familiar with them and introduced them to the Beatles who, in September 1967, gave the Fool £100,000 (equivalent to £2,292,600 in 2025)[1] to design and stock the first outlet of a planned national chain of "Apple" shops.

The Beatles business took a lease on 94 Baker Street, a Georgian townhouse dating from 1795, and the ground floor was proposed for the Apple shop despite the location being remote from the centres of fashion and design of 1960s London.

Barry Finch employed art students to paint a psychedelic style mural, designed by the Fool, across the building's facades between 10 and 12 November 1967.

The concept was borrowed from the painting of the facades of the Lord John shop in Carnaby Street, albeit executed to a figurative design with greater density and colour.

[2] Westminster City Council had not, however, granted consent for the mural, which could have been construed as an advertisement, nor had a licence to do this been sought from the landlord, the Portman Estate.

Complaints from local traders resulted in the Council issuing Apple with an enforcement notice to paint over the façade mural.

This transformation and shift in style from the florid "psychedelia" of the original mural to the minimalism of the "approved" scheme prefigures the contrast in record cover design between that of Sgt.

"The retail business lost money at an alarming rate, eventually running to £200,000 (equivalent to £4,381,200 in 2023)[1] and the shop was closed on 31 July 1968.

A Heritage Foundation blue plaque commemorating John Lennon's involvement with the shop was unveiled at the building on 27 April 2003.

[7] On 31 July 2008, a recreation of the "Apple Boutique" mural was projected onto the building by BBC programme Newsnight to mark the 40th anniversary of the shop's closure.

This was part of Newsnight's series marking the 40th anniversary of 1968 and brought together Pattie Boyd, Beatles' friend Tony Bramwell, and Sixties actress, and later fashion designer, Edina Ronay to recall the controversial and eccentric Apple Boutique.