£11.50 for a spritzer

[Talktooomuch]

Couldn’t believe how much it was for a drink in a big northern city last night!! That is unsustainable :(

This is why everyone is boozing at home instead.

Unfortunately it means they're free pouring so they drink more than they should.

I paid £6.50 for a tonic water on Friday night in a pub!!!!! I'm sure she messed it up. But I was at a works do anf didn't want to make a fuss. But I did make it last all evening and enjoyed every single ice cube!!

In one of my local pubs last week, I ordered a large glass of red wine and after choosing from an English red or a generic Malbec I went with the English one for a change. £19 for a 250ml glass. I made every single drop last and enjoyed it but could not believe it! And this is a little market town in the South, nowhere fashionable!!

£19 for a glass of wine?! £19?!! Fucking hell. I'd need a bottle to get over the shock!

Honestly, I had a few drinks and a meal and it was around £70 for one person. No wonder all the pubs are shutting ☹️

It was lovely but only 22.50 a bottle from the producers!

That’s gross! Before means my partner moved in together we both had flats with no garden and went to a lovely riverside pub in the summer. Two gin and tonics SINGLE shot and it was £24! We haven’t been back since and now enjoy a homemade one in our garden

Fucking hell, I got cocktails in London last summer for £10.
Beer and wine were cheaper.

@claracluck1978 tbf, a 250ml glass is a third of a bottle of wine, but yeah. Still painful. Would expect a bottle that's £22 retail to be about £55-£60 in a bar so that's about right. But right doesn't mean nice I appreciate!

It's a strange one- if I'd been out for dinner and ordered a £60/70 bottle it wouldn't have felt so much; but £19 for a glass in an average pub seemed out of place!

@claracluck1978 I agree, poor management of the wine list. You just shouldn't have wines that work out at those prices per glass at that kind of place!!!

With respect, they have minimum wage and bills to pay. I totally get it's expensive. How would you make it cheaper?

I’ve stopped ordering wine in pubs /restaurants because of the cost.

We went to a vineyard near us in the London/Kent borders.
Where they did pizza and a glass of their own fizz, 4 of us had a pizza and 6 125ml glasses of their own sparkling wine, the bill came to over £210, the pizza cost a tenner.
We have not been back or purchased any of their wines because of the price.
When we went to the shard we paid £110 for a bottle of English sparkling wine, and we did not sit on plastic chairs.

Thankfully our locals have clear pricing, and nothing like this!

Wow that's wild! Prices have definitely gone up here (in the south) but nought like that locally (haven't been out in the city recently). Generally I don't mind paying a fair amount if the atmosphere and venue are decent- I don't mean extravagantly decorated or anything; but friendly staff, feels safe, decent music or whatever. When it's tonnes to sit in a dingy, dirty shithole with miserable staff then nah not worth the prices.

Its a tricky balance as prices have gone up for them too of course, but peoples spare money has gone down too- there's a risk of pricing people out and the cycle continues. My best friend runs a pub and they put a lot of work into making it a community hub of sorts which brings in loyalty. Some events aren't profit spinners but they get people in who can then see how nice it is inside and how lovely the staff are and they might come back. For example £3 to meet santa- milk and cookies for the children and stories with a small gift and some crafts. Just about breaks even but it pays off through the year. Deffo need to be more proactive in securing business and offering stuff that people can't get at home.

I don't buy wine or spirits while out because it's stupidly expensive. I understand they have costs to cover, but I just don't want to pay that much so drink lager.

But I'm not surprised by £11.50 for a spritzer because I remember the first time a friend paid more than £10 for a glass of wine in a northern city. She came back to the table with a face that had suggested she'd received some terrible news, which she had. She'd got a tenner out to pay for her wine and it wasn't enough. This was before COVID so probably 2018/9 and as we know, that's before everything went up.

I understand things have gone up and they need to cover wages etc. However, I earn a decent wage but it’s getting the point that I can’t justify a night out to spend between £70-£100 and that’s not going mad. It’s worrying because then there will be more closures and job losses.

It's the variation that gets me. You never really know what you'll be charged when ordering at a bar.

I was at a WMC last night and beer was c. £2 a pint, which they're presumably at least breaking even on. In pubs the same pint will vary between £5 & £7.50 without going anywhere swanky.

It's a bit different with wine that can be of different quality, but this is a pint of the same beer.

Fwiw I don't think £70 for a meal and a "few" drinks seems too bad.

I think wine by the glass seems expensive because if you go for "large" you're really buying two drinks.

Lots of pubs and restaurants will be closing over the next 1-2 years, passing on wages, utilities and other running costs to the consumer just isn't sustainable. Many people are now reaching the point where they don't want to to pay the increased cost for a coffee, meal out or even a jumper, dress etc and they're choosing just not to buy anything.

Ultimately we're just getting to the point where we are not a country where most people can afford to eat and drink out much. Feels like such a backwards slide and it's depressing.