To ask what does your local pub do to impress you?

Happy hour.

I visited a pub in Northumberland that runs movie nights. Classic flicks on a simple projector set up. Such a lovely idea!

My local does real homemade chips, which impresses lots of people!
They also supply little safety scissors in the pots of sauce sachets to assist in gaining access, which is a lovely touch.

Great selection of alcohol free drinks too

The pub we go to and like the most isn't local to us, it's a 30 minute drive, or 45 minutes on the bus, or a £20 taxi ride.

It has a bigg-ish food side, that does good pub grub, it's not cheap - priced at restaurant level but not top restaurant.

The other side is a bar, and on Friday and Saturday nights it's packed with locals and people who have braved the bus or have driven and will get a taxi back. It's busy enough the rest of the week too. They have 5 rooms as well. It's dog friendly on the bar side and you can get a meal.

They don't do anything special like nights or whatever. It's just a good well kept pub. The secret is it's a pub for grown ups...all the other pubs are trying to be for teenagers/people wanting shots/loud music.

Know us by name when we go in (I think that's what makes it a local!)

We're very much a pub family and live in a village. However, we don't tend to frequent our two locals. They don't seem to know whether or not they want to be restaurants or pubs. Most of the floor space is given over to the restaurant side of things. But on busy days, you can't even sit and have a drink because they've added it to the restaurant.

The food in both is lovely, but expensive. It's more fancy restaurant stuff. I guess gastropub is the term. We'd rather basic grub, but food not be the main focus.

I think a village pub should be the hub of the community - a family friendly place. Maybe hosting fun events for charity. I think the best place to get advice is to post on the local Facebook page or something. Appeal to the villagers and locals rather than the out of owners.

Our favourite places have good local ales, ciders, and wines, and a traditional pub look and feel. I love when you walk into a place and and it feels like coming home.

Clean toilets! A disabled toilet is a bonus too.

My partner and I keep talking about buying a pub, he wants a traditional wet pub with no food except for things like pork scratchings and pickled eggs. I'd personally have scampi and chicken and a basket as well! And maybe someone coming round with seafood.
I love karaoke, but it's my partners idea of hell. A disco once a month or something would be fab.

Other things that make it great: comfortable chairs (not the wooden dining chairs), an open fire, a pub dog/cat, nice garden with heaters and covers for the winter, meat raffle...

A landlady at my old local used to host a poker night and she'd make a huge pan of chilli or pasta for us for free!

But my main point would be to see what the locals want. I suspect most of them would rather have a family friendly community place rather than an expensive, knobby gastropub.

The local pub is very clean and it makes itself available in the day for social drop in get togethers or classes for parents with pre school children. If you’re rural, see if you can host a baby weighing machine or give a reason for isolated mums to come to you in the daytime. Ditto try to attract retired people who have time in the daytime- find out what they would like to do. Work with your local voluntary organisations. Host a soup community lunch once a fortnight. Not things with big ticket prices to raise money for the charity. Delivery events and community building events for the charity. Maybe a charity fundraising Christmas pub quiz in return to help them with fundraising though.

And host crafts. Get a local florist in to have a community festive wreath making session next week. Host a public meeting about local issues at the pub. Invite small societies to hold their meetings at your pub. Offer a small discount on daytime food and drink.

Let's people vape inside. The pub is much busier than the two nearby that don't.

They also have a loyalty stamp card. If you buy 9 main meals then you get one free. They also do it with hot drinks as well.

I was going to suggest something like this too.

Book exchange - have a few shelves where people can pick books up / drop them off.

If you have music, don’t have it so loud that people can’t talk.

If you stick all the responses into one piece of text and ask chatGPT to consolidate them all it will and give you a. Finger in the air about everyone.

do get locals to make suggestions with a physical inbox and a anonymous QR code as well (and maybe get their email addresses optionally if they want to to keep people up to date with events)

Anonymous suggestions box supported by a QR code on a poster on the wall and in the loos

knowing my name

vegan/ non alcoholic options.

children and non children areas

Really really good beer. My local 2 pubs have 20 tap beers at one and 16 odd at the other. Got charged £10 for a pint the other day but still paid.

an atmosphere

Are there any good walks near your pub? Write a few walks, like a 1 mile round the village, a 3 mile, a 10 mile stretcher. Beginning, ending or lunching at your pub. Publicise on FB , tourist office...

Board game evening, afternoon...

Murder mystery night

Cheap lunches for pensioners

A luncheon club for retired people over 65.

They get discount on meals then have loads of games like dominoes, cards & chess sat around that people can stay & play while drinking.
I think a local taxi firm do a deal with them to take people home safely, its amazing how pissed 80 year olds can get while playing scrabble.

First class cask ale.
Homemade game pie.
Not too many choices on the menu.
No children.

Our local allows our older children age 10+ to use the function room for free on Fridays, whilst their parents are in the pub. That way the adults get to enjoy an evening out (up until 9pm) without paying for babysitters, and the kids get the equivalent of a youth club without disrupting the other punters. They mainly just huddle round their phones or play board games. It works because it’s a small community with kids at the same school and parents who like to socialise with each other.
They also do a meal deal for kids 3-6pm Fridays which is great for the younger ones.

Single sex toilets.

This 100%

I also like a pub that does proper coffees so Americano, cappuccino (oat milk!) etc. as sometimes I just want a hot drink after a dog walk.

I prefer these if I go out with my husband. It's ridiculous how children and parents behave 2024.

Ours is a cafe bar it is always busy. They have a roaming magician once a week, quiz nights, outside tables and a small menu with lovely breakfast, coffee and a limited menu with scotch eggs, sausages rolls, cakes, nachos etc, plus the bar with the alcoholic and non alcoholic options. They also have guest craft beers and cocktails.

Food elevates a pub for me. I pay more for food at my favourite pub because the chef is absolutely amazing. Whatever they're paying him isn't enough, they always sell out of the specials at weekend although often don't do food during weekdays presumably as he needs time off! The menu changes frequently too which makes us want to come back. Not doing food every day doesn't seem to be a problem for punters. Quality not quantity.

It's a touristy place and I know locals rates for beer seem to be help keep the trickle of locals coming in.

A simple thing I like in pubs is just having something like ham or cheese rolls wrapped in cling film at the bar for a pound or two. Lovely for when you're peckish for more than crisps but not wanting to spend on big meal. I'm sure it makes us buy extra beer or stay a bit longer. Bonus if there's pickle etc you can add yourself. Can't cost much but definitely a crowd pleaser.

Locally sourced food, nothing fancy, just basic simple stuff but from local farms, butchers and greengrocers, also other local stuff such as locally made ice cream, cakes from local bakers, free range eggs, etc. Basically things to differentiate from pub chains who all use the same bought in cheap rubbish from brakes/3663 etc. All day breakfasts, and other foods all day, not just fixed lunch and evening meal times. Afternoon teas and a decent coffee machine.

Get involved with local community beyond the pub, ie in our village, the pub landlord is on the parish council, the primary school PTA, and helps organise some village activities such as an annual scarecrow competition, bonfire night fireworks, etc even though not held at the pub, he just gets involved and that breaks down barriers with locals who aren’t particularly drinkers to feel more welcome in the pub.

Beer garden of the year
one of Camra’s pubs of the year
no under 18’s
regular ‘ nights’ game nights, paint and sip nights, craft evenings, live music, limited, but tasty bar food, lots really!

The best pub is one with a good juke box - online so you can down load any songs .
No food - plenty of Wetherspoons and chain pubs for that .
No kids- I go out for peace and quiet away from kids .
Real fire .
Live music
Bonus ball
Meat raffle
Clean toilets
Reliable opening hours - don’t want to make the effort to get there to find it’s shut

Edited to add:
✅ Live music is great! Just no loud hi-fi playing music, thanks
No fruit machines
No TVs