To ask do you actually have to eat a meal

[MLMbotsgoaway]

Am so fed up of being indoors that I fancy doing a dog walk and having a glass of wine in the pub tomorrow.

However I’ve seen posts on Facebook etc that you basically have to have a meal to be able go to a pub.

Is this the case? I don’t really want to eat out at the pub, rather just stop for half an hour and have a drink.

I had a pint at a pub yesterday and I bought one for my husband. I also had to buy two bowls of soup which we didn't touch because we had just had dinner, and neither of us likes chicken soup. It was worth it after not having a few moments together out of the house in a month. But was £22. So I won't be doing it again any time soon! We also went about half nine and so were soon scurried out.

PS I offered to order something that the staff would like to eat, or which they could give away, on the assumption that they knew we wouldn't be touching it. They said no, but there was never any pretence we were going to eat it. No one else was eating either, there were just plates of uneaten food all around. Pretty sad.

MLM also Tier 2 my Son is a pub manager. It has to be a meal you can’t have a drink on its own. A scotch egg on it’s own isn’t a meal but if you have it with chips and salad then it Is enough.

@AndcalloffChristmas

It’s just to stop people going to the pub to get hammered and then not sticking to distancing rules. The food doesn’t obviously stop you catching covid.

It might not make sense but that’s what they’re aiming for. While keep the pubs open to keep businesses open.

However I think food is a loss leader for many pubs so this many not help them. The pub advising people to eat slow is obviously keen to get its alcohol sales up for this reason.

I have friends (a couple) who have booked a table at 4 pm in a pub for dinner, aiming for a long look at the menu (ahem) before ordering food, then another long look at the pudding menu... after which they may even decide against pudding!

Well that failed for my son tonight - he went to two different pubs and had a "substantial meal" in each and came back hammered. (yes, he broke the rules because he was with a friend who was outside his household but who he works with).

I went OUT last night to a comedy club - apparently there's something in "the rules" that means you can have just alcohol, no food, if you've paid to see a performance.

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay

I went OUT last night to a comedy club - apparently there's something in "the rules" that means you can have just alcohol, no food, if you've paid to see a performance.

The rules are a load of nonsense really aren't they? They basically are saying that they think anyone wanting to go to a pub just to have a drink are drunken yobs who can't be trusted to behave if they have a drink. But obviously if you are "dining" or "seeing entertainment" you are obviously cultured enough to be trusted to behave.

Complaining about how stupid it is and saying Il only be there for half an hour and half one drink won’t help your case.

Her ‘case’? Her case with who? She’s not arguing the point in court.

I live abroad and here you have to buy something to eat in order to purchase an alcoholic drink. So they have 'Irish pasta' for $1, which is a tiny bowl of fusilli, which counts as a meal.

Maybe they should start doing scotch eggs

yes, he broke the rules because he was with a friend who was outside his household but who he works with)

Not if they were outside!

The rules are a load of nonsense really aren't they? They basically are saying that they think anyone wanting to go to a pub just to have a drink are drunken yobs who can't be trusted to behave if they have a drink. But obviously if you are "dining" or "seeing entertainment" you are obviously cultured enough to be trusted to behave

Unfortantly a lot of the resent spike was indeed down to idiots getting drunk in large groups and gathering in large groups at beaches. When your hammered in large groups social distancing disappears, look at convent garden when pubs first re opened and no one there gave a single flying. Because of behaviour the majority of us who would abide by SD, and in fact for those that’s the way we normally use the pub like op going for a single glass have too loose out too.

As for the rules being different for food and entertainment, and I have sympathy with this (daughter of a hotelier/restaurant owner and I have a slight knowledge of the theatre world) the government were under a certain amount of pressure to help restart two of the hardest hit industries. The hospitality industry is on its knees, their many people in entertainment who are really really struggling. So they are simply trying to keep open pubs/restaurant while discouraging the sort of behaviour we saw in July and august.

I know it’s not really starting the hospitality industry and indeed is putting more pressure on a number of small businesses over the edge, but that’s the flawed logic behind it.

@grassisjeweled are you in Ireland? I thought a substantial meal had to be over €9.95

Also the scotch egg thing is a joke an MP was interviewed on what constitutes a substantial meal and he replied he wasn’t sure why people were upset as a scotch egg would count literally everyone went since when was a scotch egg a substantial meal

What is the logic of the rule? What difference does it make if you have a full steak meal with chips and a stuffed mushroom and broccoli. Or a scotch egg.

The “logic” is that if your eating a meal your not getting smashed out of your head and unaware of social distancing your also unlikely to have a meal in huge groups, also there’s an element that there’s naturally a gap between tables etc rather than everyone standing around ignoring social distancing with pints in their hands

It’s of course flawed because COVID really doesn’t care if you have steak and chips or just a single pint.

Exactly Rizzle. So, in fact there isn't any logic. At all.

I think it was just an easy option for Boris. But it's cheap/ill thought through/seems rash - very damaging for the pub/restaurant/entertainment industry.

I wouldn't be very impressed if I ran a pub.

We went to the pub yesterday. Arrived at 1, had a starter, stayed until 6.

As a bar manager I will confirm it depends on how strict the venue wants to be. The council have confirmed they don’t and won’t police it. The police have better things to do so.. also the legislation is vague and how they interpret it. It’s also classism at worst IMHO.

@Oblomov20

What is the logic of the rule? What difference does it make if you have a full steak meal with chips and a stuffed mushroom and broccoli. Or a scotch egg.

The logic of the rule is that it's an extension of existing legislation that allows 16 and 17 YOs to have beer or wine with a meal in a pub or restaurant.

A drink or two with a proper meal is legal but half a dozen 17 YOs sharing a bowl of chips while they spend the evening getting hammered is not.

So much wasted food, knowingly wasted.

@RizzleDrizzle

The “logic” is that if your eating a meal your not getting smashed out of your head and unaware of social distancing your also unlikely to have a meal in huge groups, also there’s an element that there’s naturally a gap between tables etc rather than everyone standing around ignoring social distancing with pints in their hands

It’s of course flawed because COVID really doesn’t care if you have steak and chips or just a single pint.

It’s not about if Covid “cares about food”.It’s about severely limiting contacts ASAP before Christmas. Pubs have just been shut for two weeks and the government had little choice but to let them re open.

How do you stop lots of people meeting up but let pubs serve their function as meeting places?

This rule is designed to cut casual contact as far as possible whilst giving some pubs the chance to gain a little lost income with food sales.
Pubs that can’t do food can close and not spend a fortune on extra Covid compliance and staff to implement them.

Be interesting to see what happens New Years Eve.

I think this sill be very lightly policed.
Could maybe not eat it there and ask for a doggy bag to take home (or give to the dog as others have said.

Yes winter if you read my previous post to that that’s exactly what I said

I was answering the question to what the difference between going to the pub and just having a drink and why is it different to having a meal. As OP pointed out actually eating a meal often means longer contact with another person, outside the your household and longer in close proximinity to to other people! Therefore from everything we’ve been told the more risk!

My COVID doesn’t care, was a way of acknowledging and trying to preempt the so I’m not going to catch covid if I eat a meal but I am if I just have a wine what a clever virus!

I think another aim of it is to stop people visiting multiple venues on one evening. Requiring a “substantial meal” does that as fewer people are likely to buy food in multiple pubs. Therefore if someone is asymptomatic they’re visiting fewer venues to inadvertently spread the virus.

Tier three here. I would happily buy a meal to be allowed to sit in somewhere. All those years of being warned about the effects on the body of eating while moving and yet for millions of people now they’re being offered that as the only choice.

All those years of being warned about the effects on the body of eating while moving and yet for millions of people now they’re being offered that as the only choice

Errrr why is eating while moving your only choice? Do you not have tables and chairs at home? You know you don’t have to eat your takeaway in the street don’t you? In fact I think the point is that you don’t

You go buy the burger/chips/pint go home and drink it on your own table and chairs. I think it’s to reduce you out at all!

One of the pubs here (Tier 2) they won't bring you any alcohol until you have ordered your substantial meal, then you have 2 hours until you have to be out.

I assumed the rule was so that there wouldn't be as many people coming and going in the pub. No popping in for half an hour etc.

I know the feeling op. I finally have a use for the hip flask someone gave me for Xmas years ago.