Pubs, and the demise of.

Baldybonce

Some of you may be aware that the Porcupine in Mottingham has closed down and been bought by Lidl.
My personal view is that the place was a dump and would rather it became a Harvester or something along those lines but 1400 people have signed a petition calling for the pub to be saved.
Have Pubs had their day or what?

RedPanda

I'm sure this ground has been covered before but basically, yeah. Wetherspoons et al are also partly to blame.

Has anyone ever done a pub crawl from Manchester to Oldham when playing there? There are an absolute ton of derelict pubs on that route.

Riviera

The Dutch House to become a McDonalds according to The News Shopper.
Many things are to blame for the demise of the pub. Cheap booze in supermarkets, cheap booze from abroad, smoking ban, all-day opening (major factor IMO), easy acces to drugs, demise of many breweries like Youngs, Charrington, Fremlins, Courage, Ind Coope etc.
Te situation is really bad, what will it be like in 10 years time? I dread to think.

ThreadKiller

What went wrong with Punch Taverns

EastStand

It depends on the area. My pub is in London Bridge and its getting busier by the month.
It also depends on what you're offering, your bog standard pub is a dying breed. You need to offer punters more than just a pint these days to have any hope of staying alive. For instance our pub is a whisky pub, we serve food, we're getting a pop up restaurant to do more food, summer BBQ and outside bar to come plus quiz nights and whisky tasting nights.
If more pubs were able to put in the time/money/effort to make themselves a bit more special I doubt they'd be forced to close down.

Off_it

Drinking in pubs has become just too bloody expensive.

RedPanda

EastStand said:

It depends on the area. My pub is in London Bridge and its getting busier by the month.

What pub's that mate? Am around there a fair bit.

Boom

Off_it said:

Drinking in pubs has become just too bloody expensive.

Is that why you never put your hand in your pocket?

Off_it

Boom said:

Off_it said:

Drinking in pubs has become just too bloody expensive.

Is that why you never put your hand in your pocket?

Says the bloke who needs a cattle prod to get him anywhere near the ramp!

stop_shouting

Off_it said:

Drinking in pubs has become just too bloody expensive.

It certainly ain't stopped you though

Off_it

stop shouting said:

Off_it said:

Drinking in pubs has become just too bloody expensive.

It certainly ain't stopped you though

I try to do my bit for the local economy.

Danny Addick

EastStand said:

It depends on the area. My pub is in London Bridge and its getting busier by the month.
It also depends on what you're offering, your bog standard pub is a dying breed. You need to offer punters more than just a pint these days to have any hope of staying alive. For instance our pub is a whisky pub, we serve food, we're getting a pop up restaurant to do more food, summer BBQ and outside bar to come plus quiz nights and whisky tasting nights.
If more pubs were able to put in the time/money/effort to make themselves a bit more special I doubt they'd be forced to close down.

Good post

Baldybonce

Danny Addick said:

EastStand said:

It depends on the area. My pub is in London Bridge and its getting busier by the month.
It also depends on what you're offering, your bog standard pub is a dying breed. You need to offer punters more than just a pint these days to have any hope of staying alive. For instance our pub is a whisky pub, we serve food, we're getting a pop up restaurant to do more food, summer BBQ and outside bar to come plus quiz nights and whisky tasting nights.
If more pubs were able to put in the time/money/effort to make themselves a bit more special I doubt they'd be forced to close down.

Good post

yes it was.
I've just had a leaflet through the door to say there is a rally to save the Porcupine next week attended by Brandon Lewis and Bromley MP Bob Neill.

Off_it

EastStand said:

It depends on the area. My pub is in London Bridge and its getting busier by the month.
It also depends on what you're offering, your bog standard pub is a dying breed. You need to offer punters more than just a pint these days to have any hope of staying alive. For instance our pub is a whisky pub, we serve food, we're getting a pop up restaurant to do more food, summer BBQ and outside bar to come plus quiz nights and whisky tasting nights.
If more pubs were able to put in the time/money/effort to make themselves a bit more special I doubt they'd be forced to close down.

The Britannia?

The flaw in your argument is that if all pubs put in more time and effort to make themselves special then that would be the norm, so they wouldn't be special anymore.

EastStand

Aye The Britannia.
Well, maybe special isn't the right word, interesting I guess.

DaveMehmet

The pub in wycombe had the right idea.

kentaddick

pubs are being taxed out of existance. Another thing to thank blair for.

rananegra

TBH I think pubs will survive, but the standard local boozer is likely to change a lot. There are some things that a pub is always going to get people through the door for, e.g. I don't have sky, so if I want to watch a lot of games I need to find a pub which is showing them. At the bottom end of the pub market, Wetherspoons, cheap supermarket booze and the smoking ban have seen to a lot of them.
For me, aside from just getting older, the big drawback is price. Over £3 a pint almost everywhere I go. It goes up all the time, I haven't had a pay rise in years. Something has to give. So it becomes a rare treat. And as it is rarer, I'm more likely to go to a certain few places rather than just pick any old dive like I would have when younger.

ladywell_addick

The alcohol duty ought to be increased greatly in supermarkets and offies and decreased in pubs.
Why this isn't the case right now I'll never know. It'd help stop underage drinking (it's way more difficult getting served in a pub than a corner shop) and binge drinking (at least with a pub, the landlord/bar staff can see when you're paralytic and not serve you or give you some water).

rananegra

And in a positive story relating to this:
http://www.ivyhousenunhead.com/index.php

Ivy House was a fab pub out of the way in Nunhead with a great music hall-type venue out the back. It was closed suddenly, at the same time as a lot of music-related pubs seemed to be going last year (e.g. the Montague in New Cross). The owners wanted to sell and it looked like flats would be inevitable. The locals fought it, got it listed and eventually bought it off the developers. (Sound familiar?)
Hopefully it will survive, as I think it's a great venue. But it will do so by appealing to loads of different people - which is what they are aiming to do.

se9addick

rananegra said:

And in a positive story relating to this:
http://www.ivyhousenunhead.com/index.php

Ivy House was a fab pub out of the way in Nunhead with a great music hall-type venue out the back. It was closed suddenly, at the same time as a lot of music-related pubs seemed to be going last year (e.g. the Montague in New Cross). The owners wanted to sell and it looked like flats would be inevitable. The locals fought it, got it listed and eventually bought it off the developers. (Sound familiar?)
Hopefully it will survive, as I think it's a great venue. But it will do so by appealing to loads of different people - which is what they are aiming to do.

That pub is quite literally up the road for me (I drink in The Rye) and I had no idea about its story, will be visiting very soon.

BlackForestReds

Great story - re the Ivy House.

Cardinal Sin

Local pubs are slowing becoming old people's clubs. Any of the old haunts of mine that are still open, are populated by a quarter of the people that used to use them. That quarter are still the same people who were using them twenty years ago. There is a obvious absence of young drinkers. Ask yourself, when was the last time you smiled to see a few under-aged lads trying to get served? It used to be a weekly occurrence wherever you drank.

Lincsaddick

Too expensive, too impersonal, cannot drink and drive, no smoking, the days of the pub are numbered for most of them .. The £5 pint?? .. taking the mick

fatrob

Was in the Red Lion last night and there was only six people in there and shut early

ShootersHillGuru

I think the licences trade is walking blindfold towards the precipice. Pubs are closing left right and centre and yet the cost of a pint is still going up. I used to use a pub very often because I don't like drinking at home. Still don't. I have a decent job but its just too damned expensive to go out on the lash other than occasionally. I wonder what will be left of the great British pub culture in twenty years.

ladywell_addick

Lincsaddick said:

Too expensive, too impersonal, cannot drink and drive, no smoking, the days of the pub are numbered for most of them .. The £5 pint?? .. taking the mick

I was with you up to this.
Putting other peoples' live in danger for the sake of a few pints is not worth it.

Lincsaddick

ladywell_addick said:

Lincsaddick said:

Too expensive, too impersonal, cannot drink and drive, no smoking, the days of the pub are numbered for most of them .. The £5 pint?? .. taking the mick

I was with you up to this.
Putting other peoples' live in danger for the sake of a few pints is not worth it.

I was not stating that a ban on drinking and driving is a bad thing, far from it .. but that the drink driving laws are a big disincentive, especially in rural areas, for people to go to the pub

Saga Lout

I think there are a number of factors:

Cheap alcohol in supermarkets.
Alcohol available everywhere - there are countless shops selling the stuff in Bexley for example.
Marketing men deciding to set up pubs to target a certain market - i.e. changing a pub specifically to appeal to, say the under 25s, rather than having a "local" where the youngsters drink at one end of the bar and their granddads at the other.
Being able to change a pub into a McDonalds because those establishments fall into the same category, so it's not a "change of use".

The smoking ban didn't help and the duty increases don't help either. The government are in a bit of a quandary with that - on the one hand pubs are a valued part of the social fabric and on the other they're under pressure the discourage excessive consumption.

I suppose times change, but I do feel it is such a shame to see the demise of the British pub - it was unique and losing it erodes what makes these islands special (IMHO).

JT

Before a night out it's definitely become more popular (and cheaper) to have drinks and whatever round someones house, then head straight to a club. Skipping the pub/bars. At 4 quid a pint, it's just too expensive if you're out all night.

newyorkaddick

No-one has mentioned the explosion in the number of coffee shops - plenty of social interactions from dates to business meetings which previously would naturally have taken place in the pub now take place in Costa or Starbucks.

There is no pressure to drink alcohol, the food options are good, they are more female-friendly than pubs, you don't run the risk of having your experienced ruined by odious drunks, and arguably they are better value too.