AIBU to think many pubs are overrated and not very welcoming?

[Bertiebiscuit]

More banging on in the news about pubs closing, who cares? Most of them are annoying blokey places, not much use to those like me who hate beer and sport and are sneered at for wanting decent sherry or good wine, which most pubs are very bad at. London pubs are especially awful, not enough seating, horrible music, very poor toilets and t v s broadcasting sport. Nightmare. Only Wetherspoons seems to get it right, affordable food, good range of wine and cocktails, lots of seating inside and out - I can ignore the sport. If I'm buying alcohol at ordinary London prices i expect somewhere comfortable to sit and decent facilities, most pubs aimed at men i suspect. So good riddance. I wish we were more like Europe, cafes serving alcohol as well as coffee and food.

"London pubs"🙄

I love pubs but would probs steer clear of spoons as a lone female

If pubs are so wonderful how come so many are closing?

If you're that worried about the 'horrendous cost of living crisis', why would you be wasting money in any pub?

From your opening post, it doesn't sound as though you've been to many pubs, or if you have you've just stuck to the same area.

There are tonnes of pubs in the UK and all very different.

The decline of pubs in my opinion goes back to when they were separated from breweries in the main. Now you have pub managers not tenants. The disconnect also grew once people were prepared to travel further.

I also think that the growth of home entertainment options had a lot of impact.

Because a lot of people are skint @Bertiebiscuit

As will the ex-employees of all these closed down pubs be.

Energy bills, taxes, inflation for starters.

I love a good pub. One here was done up over lockdown and it's so great. Historic building, sensitively extended, Riverside garden. Different pop up kitchens each day of the week, thai, smokey grill, pizza. A pub quiz night that I go to with friends. In the school holidays they run free craft for kids in the day. They put live music on in the summer and have Oktoberfest. As well as alcohol they do good coffee and cute tea on a tray. It's honestly great. The wetherspoons in my town is also great! Lovely historic building, riverside garden, cheap food with a big range, quick and cheerful service, cheap drinks that include some local beers and ciders. My kids love to go to pubs and behave well, seeing as they're used to going.

You could quite easily educate yourself on this one.

I mean really really easily, especially as you've decided to start a thread about 'people banging on' about pub closures.

I'm cringing for you.

Seriously? I can’t believe I’m about to explain this to a grown adult who lives and works in the UK.

Ok. Pubs are closing for the same reason that many other wonderful businesses are closing. They are expensive to run and the general public is, on the whole, a little bit tight for cash at the moment. Do the words ‘Cost of Living Crisis’ sound at all familiar to you? If the customers of a pub need to prioritise paying their mortgage, or putting food on the table, then they’ll probably try so stretch a pint out a lot longer than they would do normally. Which means that the pub isn’t making as much money as it needs to stay open. So unless they can tempt in more customers by doing things like offering sport on the tv, they have to close.

You mean tied is better than freehold?

I disagree. Tied means that a tenant landlord has to buy a particular brewery's products at an elevated price and isn't free to shop around. And breweries usually have a list of stipulations on how the pub is run.

Through work I've had a glimpse of how Punch Taverns operate for example, and I think they should be done for cruelty to tenant landlords 😬.

But I would say that it's amazing how many people go into the pub trade whilst being completely unsuited to it. Being welcoming and giving people what they want would be a no brainer you would think, but it seems not...

We have one remaining pub in our village, and being blunt, I wouldn't go in if it were the last place on Earth. It's very unfriendly and unwelcoming. It's the kind of place where the same blokes sit on the same stools around the bar and just stare at you if you deem to enter. There are a few random round tables dotted around but no one seems to ever sit in them. The only food is crisps and pork scratchings. Always on the village Facebook page with the "use it or lose it" but most villagers wouldn't be remotely bothered if it closed. The landlord is also the same kind of "stare at you if you deem to enter" kind of person too - not even remotely welcoming and not even a please and thank you when serving - just a grunt if you're lucky!

Going back 40 years, there were two other pubs in the village. We didn't live in the village back then, but in the next town over, but in our "courting" days, we'd often drive to the village and go to the other pubs. One had pool tables, darts boards and a few tables set up with dominoes, and on mid week evenings, it wasn't too busy, so we'd go for games etc. The other was a "quiet" pub with a few sofas in "nooks" so ideal for a bit of quiet time (and a bit of snogging!). Both seemed busy enough, but both were sold for redevelopment, one now an old people's home and the other a small housing development.

We'd go to the village because we hated the rowdy "town centre" pubs in our home town that were frequented by the drunks and other kinds of people best avoided as it was a run down seaside resort which had a lot of "problem" people transported in from other areas to occupy the empty/run down ex boarding houses converted into HMO bedsits!

It’s sod all to do with snobbery or how much money someone has. Wetherspoons is not representative of what a nice, British pub is. Nobody goes there for the atmosphere or the quality of the food or the friendly community feel. They go there because it’s cheap and, if you’re really lucky, occasionally cheerful. They’re crap.

And for the avoidance of any doubt, I love a B&M and I haven’t got a pot to pee in.

pubs are quite a British thing - as opposed to th cafe culture etc of continental Europe.

so I guess from that perspective it’s sad if the traditional ones are closing.

But people just don’t drink the water they used to. Back in early 1900s there would be a pub on every corner and all men had their local, they were always full.

It’s just a different world now.

I would say though, that I prefer a quintessentially old fashioned pub to a Wetherspoons (and I don’t really drink).

I'm amazed that you think that everyone' else's experience of pubs is just like yours

Spoons is dull and deeply depressing.

There are lots of much lovelier pubs than that.

My local is alright. But not that many actual locals use it regularly. And a couple of the staff just grunt at me. Which is nice. I wrote loads of supportive letters to licencing about them as they kept getting trouble for noise. That I never heard.
Manager is nice but it's too expensive.

I guess the price of spoons is the only thing that's acceptable about it.

Spoons is a bit too pro brexit and anti dogs for me

Of course everyone's experiences of pubs are different.

Obviously a lot of people don't mind going into a pub where all the tables are cluttered with dirty plates, half eaten food and dead drinks. Otherwise Wetherspoon's business would be suffering.

And obviously the loud, loutish drunks in the other pub we went in were happy to mix with their fellow obnoxious customers. That's why the place was mobbed.

Perhaps I phrased my comment wrongly. I should have said I'm amazed that some people have such low standards that they actually pay good money to eat and drink in such places.

I don’t much like pubs either and think they (in their traditional form) belong to an era when men hung out drinking at the pub at the weekend and women stayed home and took care of the kids. Definitely don’t want to go back to that era.

I do however think we desperately need more community venues - ones where women and men, families, all ages feel welcome.

I would like to see pubs being made over into this sort of place. Get some comfy seating, low tables as well as high. Take away the TVs showing sports (except if there’s a separate room for it, or a special event). Increase the drinks offering to cover a good range of wine, non alcoholic, coffee and tea etc. Create a kids corner for daytime. Host activities if there’s space - not just quiz night but book club, yoga, baby massage or whatever. Have sandwiches & soup not just “serious gastro menu” or crisps. Basically become a community hub.

A few pubs have already done this, really well, but I wish more would. They are often lovely buildings in perfect central locations, with many rooms that could be put to different uses. I do appreciate though that margins are very tight and it’s tough to find the money to make changes.

See @minipiei think that sounds horrific.

Pubs are part of British culture. They are communal places where people laugh, eat, play games, spend time talking over a drink and enjoy a safe space away from home.

Pubs don't suck. People who don't appreciate people and culture do.

Id rather not drink if Weatherspoons was the only pub. Our local one has shit service, shit staff, rubbish atmosphere and they don’t sell Diet Coke only Pepsi.

we have a local pub we go to, amazing service, great atmosphere and always made to feel welcome.

you are just frequenting the wrong kind of pubs.

I have 2 little kids so bring back Wacky Warehouse or pubs with outdoor playgrounds and I’ll be back.

Ok, well you wouldn’t have to go.

But it might appeal to more people than the “beer, sports and sticky carpets” model of pub. And it might be more profitable too.

Loads of great pubs near me in London. Everything from cheap ‘boozers’, including old fashioned Irish pubs to fancy ones with pricey food, plus a weatherspoons. One local has comedy nights, life drawing, chess club, quiz nights- it’s a lovely welcoming local