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

[PubFairyGodmother]

Totally posting for traffic!

I run a small village pub. We’re off the main road, people have to be coming to our village to find us.

We open 6 days a week, all day, serve food at lunch and dinner times. We have a main bar, a smaller room and a function room. These additional rooms are regularly used by local groups for meetings - we don’t charge for the rooms for local groups, but people buy drinks and they help make the place feel busy mid-week.

We have 2 darts teams, regular monthly quizzes. We’ve stepped back from regular live music, so many places do it, the local bands can always be seen somewhere else next week (ie no incentive to come to the sticks) and they charge a lot, it doesn’t always make financial sense.

I’m just wondering if any of your local pubs do something that you think “oh that’s a good idea!”? Let’s face it, I doubt we’ll be in competition! Anything in the pub or anything online? I need to find some untapped markets to keep our lovely pub going!! Thank you

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Happy hour.

My local pub seems to have done a deal with the local sports pitches and open during training sessions & matches. The actual car park at the pitches is miniscule but you can park in the pub for £5 which includes a free bacon roll and hot drink. They also do the match teas afterwards.

The weekly lunch club is also VERY popular. 3 courses and a hot drink for £5 (£1 for kids and they get squash). A space on the minibus can be booked for £2 each way. My kids love the lunch club during the holidays.

And possibly the biggest, fattest, laziest ginger tom cat ever. He sits on the bar and yourself think he was a soft toy unless you're lucky enough to see him move.

@PubFairyGodmother I think you’ll see from the wide variety of answers here that you wont be able to please everyone! I think you’ll need to decide on the type of customer base you want and respond accordingly.

The only consistent suggestion is good chips.

And clean loos!

Serve a good bowl of chips in a clean loo and you’ve smashed it! 😂

Good non alcoholic beer is often missed in UK. Not just Heineken 0, but actually nice one. It's not just for drivers. Sometimes I switch in the middle of the night for a pint just to keep in stable condition.

Ours has a piano and does regular "sing-a-longs". These can be themed i.e. Christmas, Disney, old school assembly classics, power ballads... the list is endless! The family friendly stuff is run at weekends during the day and is popular with local families, the more grown up stuff on an evening. It's amazing the power of a piano sing a long!

Pub local to my parents does a 'whisky tasting' afternoon in their function room once a month, representatives from different whisky brands are there and do tastings. Very popular afternoon out for groups of men in the 30-45 age group, who seem to then stay on and drink there for the evening.

Keeps the premises dog-free.

Decent beer. None of that Doombar rubbish or Beavertown water. Real indie and cask ales, preferably local.

My local was bought by a landlord a couple of years ago who instantly banned kids at any time.
It's great and busier than it's ever been. Serves a decent pint too.
It also means you can play a game of pool without risking taking a kids eye out when you draw the cue back.

I meant that if you ask them to they are happy to 'veganise' the veggie options. They change their menu monthly (although keep many of the basics, like posh fish and chips) and often there are no vegan dishes but I know I can always have a tasty meal because they will veganise things if you ask, and they do it really well.

No screens, no sports

Probably already been mentioned, but a selection of board games and chess/ draughts boards to use.

Oh yes.