This sort of crap is the reason why I don't go to pubs, and am indifferent to the regular bleating from the licensed victualers association that pubs are closing.
If I go to Costa or Cafe Rouge or Pizza Express, it'll be run by a manager who probably wishes that she was running somewhere with a couple of Michelin stars instead, and one day might, but in the meantime does the best she can with a fixed menu, a high turn over of Polish student waitstaff and an area manager who's a bit shouty about targets. If I'm unlucky, the service will be slow and the loos won't be terribly clean. If I'm lucky, the staff with be friendly and they'll smile when I leave a tip. Whatever, it's unlikely to be substantially worse (or, of course, substantially better) than the average of such places.
If I go to a non-chain or non-franchise place, it's a bit more hit and miss, but largely they're owned by naive women funded by their indulgent husbands people who want to stay in business, and they will at least go through the motions of not being complete arses. Sometimes you do think you've ended up in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares or You've Been Framed, but their hearts are normally in the right place and sometimes the whole experience can be lovely. And at worst, they're just a bit crap, and you put it down to experience.
But if I go to a pub, there's a strong chance it'll be run by a bloke who fancies himself as a bit of a Cockerney wideboy slash hardman, aspires to being played by Danny Dyer, thinks "brassy" is a term of endearment in a woman and in general behaves like the aforementioned complete arse. People with long memories might remember the "Jeff Bin In?" strip in Private Eye, which was a tribute to the famously rude Norman Balon of the Coach and Horses, Soho where the Eye still have their fortnightly lunches. Presumably, if you're not on the receiving end of being told to fuck off by a tattooed working class man in a singlet, for some people who probably went to public schools that sort of thing is all rather exciting; you get to see authentic proletarian culture, which is frightfully interesting if you went to Repton. But for the rest of us it's all rather a lost age, and it's not worth the bother of getting involved in other people's fantasies just to get a drink. So you end up in Cafe Rough Rouge instead, and the pub trade continues to blame almost anything - the smoking ban, drink-driving legislation, VAT, duty, planning laws - for the fact that people no longer want to go into their premises.