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Post by channonite on Apr 12, 2011 20:14:34 GMT
While out walking this morning I went past a big local pub that has been closed for refurbishment. It used to consist of two big bars, lounge and public. A big skittle alley at the end of the public bar and a small dining room, which was principally to cater for the guests of a small motel section.
It has reopened as an up-market, multi-room restaurant. No bars. No guest accommodation of any sort. No skittle alley.
And this is not the first pub in the town to give up so completely on simply being a pub. I fact I would say that there is only one "proper", traditional style pub left in the town. They are resolutely a drinking pub. No food. In fact the only thing you can get to eat there are crisps. The choice is Walker's plain crisps, or .... Walker's plain crisps!
So, in a small town that used to have seven pubs, we are down to one and six up-market restaurants.
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Post by Mandochris on Apr 12, 2011 20:41:52 GMT
You can talk casually of a thing like this at a time like this!!
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Post by channonite on Apr 12, 2011 20:47:08 GMT
You can talk casually of a thing like this at a time like this!! Trying not to think about football. FACT. |
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Post by spot51 on Apr 13, 2011 7:52:59 GMT
My dad worked for a local brewery and latterly for Whitbreads and I did a lot of bar work in my yoof.
The "spit and sawdust boozer" was a Victorian invention powered by the working classes getting more free time and disposable incomes. It was where you went in the evening rather than sit at home staring at the wall.
Technology changed all that. Radio, TV, internet, X boxes and the like provide other things for people to do in the evenings. The increase in car ownership and the reluctance to drink and drive made people less likely to drink. By the 60s country pubs had realised it was "Do Food or Die!" In our High Streets it is ROI that is killing pubs - there is not enough margin in selling booze to make the sums add up.
Interestingly, Whitbread (once a major brewer with tens of thousands of tied houses) no longer brews beer or owns pubs. It reacted to the changes by exiting the sector. Now it runs hotels, restaurants and health clubs.
Indeed, health put the final nail in the pubs' coffin. Drinking in a boozer every night is not exactly a healthy lifestyle. And now you can't even go out on a Friday to drink, smoke and talk shite with your mates thanks to the smoking ban, what point do pubs have anymore?
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Post by eusebio on Apr 13, 2011 8:01:14 GMT
Since the smoking ban most of the pubs in the city now stink of food. The pubs that have room outside are still doing ok the others from I can see are struggling.
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Post by Mandochris on Apr 13, 2011 8:26:18 GMT
Nice piece of (s)potted social history there Spot. Was it Mew brewery in Newport, where you dad worked? I used to love walking past that place and smelling the brewing beer when I was about 10 or 12. Maybe my love of beer comes from there.
I once tried to cut beer out but I never found a good substitute drink. I do like pubs but of course I don't live there so it may be the nostalgic factor. I can see that many have lost their sense of purpose.
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Post by spot51 on Apr 13, 2011 8:58:10 GMT
Nice piece of (s)potted social history there Spot. Was it Mew brewery in Newport, where you dad worked? I used to love walking past that place and smelling the brewing beer when I was about 10 or 12. Maybe my love of beer comes from there. I once tried to cut beer out but I never found a good substitute drink. I do like pubs but of course I don't live there so it may be the nostalgic factor. I can see that many have lost their sense of purpose. Yes, Dad went to work for Mew Langtons in the 30s. Back then they had a lot of shops (off-licenses) on IOW and he worked in Sandown. After the war they moved him to Ryde (which is why I grew up there) and eventually to the Royal Brewery in Crocker St. Mews were taken over by Strongs. Strongs and Brickwoods were taken over by Whitbread. When I started working in Pompey I used to get that same lovely hoppy smell from the Brickwoods brewery in Queen St. Given the flak Whitbreads used to get from the real ale mob for foisting* Tankard on an unsuspecting populace, I once asked my Dad what he felt about the Company. He didn't have a bad word to say about them. Thought it was a brilliant organisation (and it paid him a very generous pension too).  *IM may care to know that originally I said "fisting" instead of "foisting" there. |
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Post by Furry Frank The Combat Wombat on Apr 13, 2011 9:24:20 GMT
a fisting tankard? I imagine that's some sort of award in the adult entertainment industry...
It's all very sad and true. In (big) town you don't notice it quite so much, but out in the sticks it's really telling... so much so that on the rare occasions you do find a real pub, it's quite exciting now. As above - they've only really survived where they have a decent walk-up trade and and an outside area for the puffers.
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