To be fed up that table service will end.

[Thewinterofdiscontent]

One of the silver clouds of lockdown was the lovely table service. No more queuing in the crush at the bar or hunt for a table. Drinks and payment bought to you.
It will be a right pain going back to shouting orders across a soggy bar and juggling the drinks back.

I hope it's kept. I shall avoid pubs with a scrum at the bar.

I love table service, I also love the reduced numbers and enjoy the space and peace when I eat. Obviously this is purely selfish and I know the pubs need the extra numbers.

I can’t wait for it to be over! It might be easy and lovely for you but it’s not easy for bar staff. It’s back and forth constantly and I am exhausted after a shift! Thank god it’s coming to an end.

I have always found going to the bar an absolute ordeal so have loved the table service

Another bar worker here who can't wait for full table service to end!

It is absolutely exhausting (especially as we haven't had any extra staff to cover it), and we seem to spend half the shift arguing with people who won't stay sat down, and try to get up to loiter at the bar to see what we have on tap (even though it's all online, or we can tell them if they don't have the technology).

An element of table service is fine, but it's certainly not sustainable for us in the long term.

It will make life lots easier for the staff. I was a bartender during my student days and it was hard enough over the weekend so they really must have been rushed off their feet trailing back and forth to tables.

Yeh, the constantly having to ask people to stay seated or put their masks on when walking around (especially when they’re drunk) is hell!! And the abuse we get is disgraceful. The clicking as well 🤬🤬🤬 if another person clicks at me I swear I will lose whatever patience I have left!

Yes many small things have been so much better, on line parents evening, booking for things etc.

We are on holiday and asked in the Cornish arms if table service is continuing.. They said yes. And the app.

I hate it. Sometimes the app doesn't work and your drink takes an age to appear (or not at all).

I can't wait to choose to go somewhere I can go to the bar again.

I like both standing at the bar with other blokes and the more continental way.
They do manage table service in France and other countries, neither do they make a fuss about it.
This is perhaps another way that we have to learn to pay 'proper' prices for better trained staff and better standards of service.
Waiters and bar staff in France are not temps or minimum wage earners.
Drinks cost 50% or more than you buy in supermarket for drinking at home.

I love it too, and ordering more through an app as its so much easier than getting up and joining a queue.

I really like ordering from the table via my phone.

I do wonder how much it does eat into profits considering famous cheapskates Wetherspoons already did it before the pandemic? I know a lot of people who say they don't like the apps as it makes it too easy to order more things and that they are spending a lot more.

I do hope it will continue to remain an option.
Seems a bit silly for apps/sites to have been built and the like to then be ditched 12 months later.
I find going out far easier and I'm happy to give a tip!

If everywhere stops table service round here, then I will be heading to wetherspoons everytime I want to sit and only move for the loo,

If you’re running a busy pub with 2 bar staff only because you can’t make a profit (in normal times) then you’re doing something wrong.

@markmichelle

I like both standing at the bar with other blokes and the more continental way. They do manage table service in France and other countries, neither do they make a fuss about it. This is perhaps another way that we have to learn to pay 'proper' prices for better trained staff and better standards of service. Waiters and bar staff in France are not temps or minimum wage earners. Drinks cost 50% or more than you buy in supermarket for drinking at home.

I agree with this. I like table service too and I'm prepared to pay a premium for it. Why can't there be a mix of places; some purely table service, some purely bar, others maybe dual system - but priced accordingly so that all can survive?

I wouldn't drink in a place where I have to go to the bar and up close to other people but clearly there are others who would and indeed have missed this. There's room for everybody isn't there?

The only place I’d like for table service to end is Nando’s. I’m sick of having to flag someone down every time I want a refill of my drink and I also feel guilty about it so end up drinking less than I would like to.

Most places I've been have app ordering. I can't imagine that will go. Hope not anyway!

The other thing I like about the app ordering is if you’re with a big group it’s so much easier to just order your own and not get involved in buying rounds where one person inevitably end ups drinking for free.
Apart from the pub near us who have an app but no functionality to pay so at the end of the night bring over a giant bill that takes ages for everyone to remember exactly how many pints of cider they had

Love ordering by App, will be sad if places stop that. I also spend way more via the app, I'm easily swayed into order snacks with my drinks!

At our favourite pub the staff are all in favour of the table service and want to keep it.

I really hope table service is here to stay and would definitely favour locations that offer it, I've never liked trying to get served at a bar where there's no sensible queueing system and it's whoever gets the bar staff's attention gets served which often means pushy blokes getting instant service while as a smaller woman I am craning over the bar trying not to be overlooked.

No. I feel awful for bar staff when I've been in busy pubs with table service.

Working a bar is also a completely different skill set and often requires a different personality to waiting tables. I feel a bit sorry for staff who’ve had to move from one to the other, because they needed their job, and probably often haven’t much enjoyed it. But agree with previous poster who said that hospitality isn’t seen as a valid career in the UK in the same way it is in much of continental Europe, so workers’ views are rarely taken into account.