There are so many stories about the state of the hospitality industry and few of them are positive. Record numbers of pubs are closing – two a day, apparently – and restaurant chains like Beefeater and The Real Greek are either being closed down or have gone bust. Everyone seems to have the answer to what is going on, but particularly with regard to pubs, are we losing our connection with this Great British Institution?
I was once a serious pub goer, visiting my local on a near daily basis. These days, I am a very occasional, one might even call it rare, visitor to my local and trips to other places just to have a beer or two have become far less frequent.
It could be an age thing. I can no longer tolerate anything beyond a low level of alcohol, which health-wise is no bad thing. But by the same token, the sheer cost of drinking out is becoming if not prohibitive, then to me, unjustifiable.
A recent visit into town saw me by a round of four pints (yes, I DID buy a round!) and it came in at a few coppers short of £35. Yes, nearly £35 for four pints. It wasn’t even one of the better pubs and the beers were hardly exceptional. Most pubs are not as expensive than that but most are not exactly cheap, either. I was not inclined to repeat the experience and in recent weeks I haven’t.
For reasons that are hopefully temporary, we are not exactly flushed with cash at the moment so that’s one reason why pub life has been curtailed but I am well aware that there are a lot of folk out there – I will be meeting many of them soon at our food bank – who are permanently short of or worse without cash. Unless you have a local Wetherpoons where you can make a single £2 pint last all day, pub life is beyond reach for many.
I am not blaming pubs for charging too much. They have massive rising costs in terms of food inflation, business rates, rent costs from breweries and, it has to be said, rises in the minimum wage, which has deprived many employers, not just pubs and restaurants, from employing workers on poverty wages. I am not saying that pubs are poor value for money per se. For me, the question will be: is it worth it? To me, increasingly it isn’t.
I don’t go to the pub to eat (I hate eating out full stop). I don’t care much for loud, raucous pubs or those which show sporting events. I prefer pubs which exist to sell decent quality beer in a friendly environment, if possible with a jukebox (rare these days). My drinking habits have changed. Maybe other peoples’ are changing, too?
Given the cost of pub booze these days, and due to health considerations, I have changed my drinking habits from quantity to quality. Rather than load up on cheap supermarket booze, I’ll buy a case of wine from a reputable local company like Averys in Bristol. I won’t be drinking the wine every night – those days are long gone – so a bottle of wine that costs, say, a tenner will be infinitely better than the bottom shelf dross you can pick up from the big supermarkets. (Unless you have a serious drink problem, you would not acquire a decent Aussie Shiraz, for example, or an Argentinian Malbec for a fiver or even less for a good drinking experience: you’d buy it solely to get pissed. Again, those days are long behind me!)
As well as the costs of going to the pub and eating out, I wonder if there are cultural changes going on. The internet age means you can get most of your entertainment at the click of a button and you are no longer limited to a range of cheap microwave meals at home if you want to make something half-decent and nutritious. I appreciate that you may enjoying the actual experience of eating out: I hate it! Maybe we are just weening ourselves away from old fashioned habits?
I am sorry that the Beefeater chain is disappearing, not because the food is so good – it isn’t – but because of the loss of jobs. We’ve been to our local one which didn’t open that long ago and its cheap and cheerless. The food is extremely mediocre, the booze is mediocre and not cheap and just a few yards away stands an Aldi supermarket where you can buy all the ingredients for a much nicer meal and better booze to have in the comfort of home, rather than having to queue or wait for your portion of Gristle and oven chips. Perhaps we just want better and we don’t get it unless we pay a King’s ransom?
Vast swaths of Bristol are bereft of pubs. Places like Patchway and Knowle West have not had a local pub in many decades. We’re in highly developed South Gloucestershire and there are just a handful of generic, character-free modern pubs to choose from. It honestly feels to me like pubs are dying, certainly in town and in the burbs and I don’t see how it will ever change, never mind the trend being reversed. Maybe the pub has finally had its day?
Britain’s most evil prime minister Margaret Thatcher once declared that there was no such thing as society. I’ve always disagreed with that but the “me first, sod everyone else” spirit of Thatcher, lives on through fascist millionaire Nigel Farage. I always thought that pubs were at the heart of the community but if there is no community, then maybe that’s why pubs are dying?
I’d love to do my bit to save pubs, but at £7, £8 a pint? I don’t think so. The fact that so many pubs are closing suggests I am not the only one who is walking away. Sad, but inevitable. RIP the British pub. It was nice knowing you. Still, there’s a Costa on every street corner these days. A skinny latte, anyone? Not for me, I’ll make my own at home, thanks.
