Hello all
I run a pub, it's not very glamorous at all. I pretty much do 18 hour days. Currently it's just my DH and I so we are covering every role
We make barely a penny as a pub is like a huge cash machine for others.
We pay council tax, luckily not business rates yet as our value is tiny (was a failing pub and we are still working on that), private bin collection (£120 a month), our utilities are over £1k a month(!) we have to have a license just to play background music (£250 a month). Our rent and bills to the brewery who own the building we are tenants to is £3k then there is costs of having drinks in (anywhere between £800-£2600 a week depending on a good or bad week). There's VAt as well to HMRC and that's a nightmare for a different thread to deal with when things go wrong.
It's never ending!
Sadly, recently, maybe because the sun is out and we have had new customers try us out, the rude, obnoxious and entitled have arrived.
I have experienced crap service of course and this should always be flagged to an appropriate person
Last night for instance and probably why I am writing this we had agreed to host someone for a drinks gathering for a last minute birthday as the host works at a small business on site and was stressed. The people who came in were so obnoxious I cried when they left.
One of them before even speaking to me was on his phone loudly berating my pub as not their cup of tea, it's a "shit hole" and he was pissed off to be here. He wanted to be in the next town over.
Our pub is very far from a shit hole, it's recently refurbished all by my DH, we have so many comments on the decor that it's not your usual pub because they all look the same by brewery (very true! I think companies get mass order discounts). It was spotless (as always) and we even provided balloons and plates and stuff for them at no charge.
It was obvious they were looking for an excuse to leave so when the same guy approached the bar and declined the drinks and then said I wasn't a great barmaid because I pointed out they had been poured now so there was no reason for a refund and he said to put them back in their bottles as glass isn't porous and I should know that!?! He was so rude then the female of the group joined in saying she advised me to watch my back so we asked them to leave.
We have now had a vile and utterly fabricated review that our pub is dirty and we are rude! Google and Facebook sadly decline to remove reviews like this and just say to answer them but they are hugely damaging. So not only do we deal with behaviour of that type we then have them use reviews to continue the behaviour.
The host who works at the small business didn't come back and wasn't there but I will be speaking to her today (and may mention it to her boss) but I just ask that with summer approaching and when pub operators point out that it's such a risky time for us all, please be kind!