Pandemic vs the British Pub

How typically British the pub is, and this the 84th post on the topic shows how we feel about our bars and pubs.
I remember in the 70s in Normandy my cousin and I could not find a bar. Eventually we found a cafe that sold beer. Well we sat down and at around 8pm the cafe owner told us ferme, ferme. Now my French was basic then but even I knew that it was closing time at 8, and this was a cafe not a bar.
Even in the US they don’t have the same pub culture, it really is a British institution.

As for the high street, well a combination of the internet, local authority greed and short sighted stupidity has all but finished of the high street, and this death of the high street, is now starting to happen in our shopping centres. Take Glasgow, with the city centre on its knees, the famous sauchiehall street turning into a retail desert, what do glasgow city council do, increase car parking charges. :mad:
You couldn’t write the script.
 
This pub isn't that far from us and was saved from closure by the community https://whitelionash.co.uk/our-story. Been there a few times and it's a little belter, proper country pub interior, warm welcome, well kept ales, good reasonably priced food and a community that cares.

Not rocket science is it?

No it isn't, Ral.

I think community pubs and free houses stand a chance of survival.
All down to who's involved in operating them, like any enterprise.
 
I feel rather guilty in so far as there are five pubs within a quarter of a mile of my home of thirty years and I haven't been in any of them, over that period there has been another four closed and demolished. I have been in all the closed ones so on reflection perhaps I'm doing those still open a favour.
 
Some of the pubs up here in the Dales have done alright during lockdown. A few were just delivering everything they sold in the pub from snacks to beer to food. One pub I know of delivers 5.5 pints in a box for a tenner of proper draught beer or lager as well as spirits, wine and meals. Most of them have been doing takeaways. Our own village pub shut down a couple of years ago. It was a restaurant really with a fantastic reputation but they had just had enough and wanted to do something else. Its a house now which means Im pretty stuffed now unless I drive or get driven (always a sore point)

I did miss the Christmas booze up with my old pals in Darlo though. Thats always a good laugh. You do need a good crowd for a pub booze up I think.
 
I'm a camra member and in Chorley were lucky to have 6 micro bar's all selling a good selection of real ales and most charging £2.50- £3.50 I'm hoping most will reopen plus we have a decent weather spoon with pints priced at £.179 I think in total Chorley has at least 20 real ale bar's including the surrounding villages so I'm very lucky
 
I'm a camra member and in Chorley were lucky to have 6 micro bar's all selling a good selection of real ales and most charging £2.50- £3.50 I'm hoping most will reopen plus we have a decent weather spoon with pints priced at £.179 I think in total Chorley has at least 20 real ale bar's including the surrounding villages so I'm very lucky

You are indeed lucky.

What are house prices like? :giggle:
 
To be honest it's the price of a pint that has turned me to wine. A pint at £4.50 or a supermarket bottle of wine at £5/6 and it lasts longer. Two bottles of wine or three pints and you're closer to your bed hic.
 
Don't get too excited, if I remember correctly the Chorley Spoons also has a need for a doorman.........although I suspect that a refined Gentleman such as yourself was after the micro breweries

Yeah, not a spoons man really.

Although I did work as a nightclub doorman once. Might just be a little long in the tooth for it now though!
 
Right now I’d pay What ever they wanted. A good lock in in my favourite wee pub in Aberfeldy big fire roaring and a sing song wae the locals who will keep the pub open all night as long as you get them a dram every other round. If Carlsberg made a pub that would be it.
 
I dunno what I would drink now in the pub. Well wine probably. I pretty much stopped drinking beer about two years or so ago when I realised it was a real trigger for gout but being a serial piss head I couldnt give up drinking so moved onto Scotch and Wine although someone sent me several bottles of Jamesons recently so Im stuck into that now. Lovely. Who the hell could put up with Pub measures though now after lockdown measures though? 🥴

The last time I went out for our Christmas do we were in a real ale bar in in Darlo and ordering bottles of Shiraz each instead of pints!
 
How typically British the pub is, and this the 84th post on the topic shows how we feel about our bars and pubs.
I remember in the 70s in Normandy my cousin and I could not find a bar. Eventually we found a cafe that sold beer. Well we sat down and at around 8pm the cafe owner told us ferme, ferme. Now my French was basic then but even I knew that it was closing time at 8, and this was a cafe not a bar.
Even in the US they don’t have the same pub culture, it really is a British institution.

As for the high street, well a combination of the internet, local authority greed and short sighted stupidity has all but finished of the high street, and this death of the high street, is now starting to happen in our shopping centres. Take Glasgow, with the city centre on its knees, the famous sauchiehall street turning into a retail desert, what do glasgow city council do, increase car parking charges. :mad:
You couldn’t write the script.

Sadly the LEZ coming to Glasgow will also kill the entertainment venues.
 
I dunno what I would drink now in the pub. Well wine probably. I pretty much stopped drinking beer about two years or so ago when I realised it was a real trigger for gout but being a serial piss head I couldnt give up drinking so moved onto Scotch and Wine although someone sent me several bottles of Jamesons recently so Im stuck into that now. Lovely. Who the hell could put up with Pub measures though now after lockdown measures though? 🥴

The last time I went out for our Christmas do we were in a real ale bar in in Darlo and ordering bottles of Shiraz each instead of pints!
Sorry but folk drinking to that extent where they need it, then its time for a wee talk with the GP, lost some old school friends to i just want/need a couple, and one at the moment drying out, last pint/can i had was two or three years back.
 
Sorry but folk drinking to that extent where they need it, then its time for a wee talk with the GP, lost some old school friends to i just want/need a couple, and one at the moment drying out, last pint/can i had was two or three years back.

It was Christmas, our annual old pals booze up. The drink always flows, its once a year not every night!
 
Sorry but folk drinking to that extent where they need it, then its time for a wee talk with the GP, lost some old school friends to i just want/need a couple, and one at the moment drying out, last pint/can i had was two or three years back.

You're fooling nobody Trev. You've probably done half a bottle of Jamesons after dinner.

Bet you've got a pouch of baccy stashed somewhere too! :giggle:
 
Don't get too excited, if I remember correctly the Chorley Spoons also has a need for a doorman.........although I suspect that a refined Gentleman such as yourself was after the micro breweries
Only on Friday and Saturday nights because it's a night club I've left well before that happens only went in during day time normally a quick pint after work
 
Only on Friday and Saturday nights because it's a night club I've left well before that happens only went in during day time normally a quick pint after work

Our local Spoons is like that on Friday and Saturday.

All the youngsters fuel up on cheap supermarket booze at home during the afternoon and head for the cheap spoons beer and shorts later on. Usually ends up in a big punch up on the market square.
 
Many many years ago in the Cambridge Spoons, the largest pub in Europe at the time, some bright spark did Stella for 50p a pint........riot van's were required and they were banned from ever doing it again :LOL:
 
Sadly the LEZ coming to Glasgow will also kill the entertainment venues.
I suppose that’s inevitable, but the GCC are already creating a LEZ with their stupidity. If M&S pull out of Sauchiehall street, that’s it finished. Who would ever have thought that. Even Argyle street is looking poor. The way things are going they won’t need a LEZ, who would want to go there. But the LEZ poses a question. Glasgow has the finest motorway system in the UK bar none. We have the M8, M80, M74, M73, and the M77 all within the city boundary carrying most of the traffic. Due to this unless you apply a LEZ to any of these which is unlikely, it seems a waste of time. The city centre still has good entertainment, but they will suffer due to the decline of the high street.
 

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top