[HN Gopher] Number of pubs in England and Wales falls to record low ___________________________________________________________________ Number of pubs in England and Wales falls to record low Author : samizdis Score : 75 points Date : 2022-07-04 07:47 UTC (15 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com) | WhyDoIThink wrote: | More people are at their homes playing video games, using | streaming platforms, and going online to shop for alcohol or | food. Less people are wanting to leave their homes, especially | during gas inflation and other things. | mshook wrote: | That's a good point. | | Not only people tend to drink less nowadays but also when | people mention these kinds of development (like movie theater | decline and so on), they forget to mention all of these are | just different kinds of entertainment. | | And there has never been so many ways to entertain oneself so | the competition is stiff. | cpursley wrote: | Gas inflation? Aren't most pubs in the UK walkable (vs say, US | bars)? | iasay wrote: | Not necessarily. In cities people tend to be disparately | located so usually ends up via public transport. In small | towns the local pub can be a 30 minute walk away or a 30 | minute taxi away depending on how many of them have closed | down and the spread of the car-focused structure of some | towns. | | The petrol/gas inflation, plus the incursion of Uber, really | screwed the prices of the taxis up as well. | Nux wrote: | Indeed many are and in the age of working from home I expect | many neighbourhood pubs to do well. | | We're certainly going more often than before. | cpursley wrote: | It's also a great way to get to know your neighbors and | build community. | [deleted] | chmod775 wrote: | A location only reachable by car would be a suboptimal choice | for any establishment mainly selling alcoholic beverages. | standardUser wrote: | You just described America. | revscat wrote: | Suboptimal? | morninglight wrote: | I've been going to pubs in Wales and England since 1977. I've | noticed the customers seem to be older during the last 10 years. | I suspect it is related to much social interaction moving to the | internet. | | In any case, I wonder how this change has affected the sale of | beer & ale. | [deleted] | richardwhiuk wrote: | Isn't that just you are getting older and thus more likely to | go to pubs where people are older? | morninglight wrote: | Brilliant, but I already thought about that and doubt that it | is the case. | | Furthermore, I refuse to admit that I am getting older. | | Cheers | krona wrote: | I live in a semi-rural area and all the local pubs that serve | food are overflowing on a weekend, and usually busy on a | weeknight. | | However, they all have staffing problems, and some have to close | part of the week because staff presumably find better work | elsewhere. | | Couple that with sometimes extortionate business rates and many | average pubs in remote areas are simply not viable. | genocidicbunny wrote: | Sounds like they're not paying their staff enough. If they're | not having trouble with staffing on busy nights, but are on | quiet ones thats a pretty sure sign that they need to raise | their pay. On busy nights staff might be okay with the lower | pay thanks to tips, but otherwise its likely more profitable | for them to go work somewhere else that pays better. | chrisseaton wrote: | > On busy nights staff might be okay with the lower pay | thanks to tips | | You have absolutely no idea about this topic you're | commenting on, do you? | genocidicbunny wrote: | It might not be applicable to the UK, as someone else | pointed out, but this is absolutely the case in the US. On | a good night, a server might make several times more than | their hourly wages in tips alone. I've known plenty of | people that worked as wait staff at a restaurant that liked | the tipping system because thanks to tipping their wages | were several times higher than minimum wage. Most of them | would have rather had a slow night once in a while rather | than give up the tipping because of how much they made | thanks to tipping. | Dan_Sylveste wrote: | >tips | | Barstaff don't get tips in the UK | | It's more likely that on quiet nights/days it's simply not | cost effective to open. During a weekday a small pub might | literally have one or two customers. They're traditionally | owner-operated for a reason, and the reason is because the | margins don't allow for staff. | genocidicbunny wrote: | Fair point. I'm looking at this from an American point of | view, and I forgot that wait staff in the UK get paid | actual wages unlike in the US. | origin_path wrote: | mywacaday wrote: | The reasons are multiple but here are the ones I've noticed are. | Compared to my father's generation most women now work and men | and more involved with the family, a hangover Saturday/Sunday | morning doesn't work. Cost, mortgage/childcare require two | salaries, hard to justify a large cost of pub sources alcohol. | The cost of property, saving for a deposit creates a habit of no | longer going to the pub. We no longer need to go to a social | place toget most of our local news or gossip, Facebook/WhatsApp | have filled the gap. Every generation seems to be more health | focused than the previous. | cletus wrote: | People who've never spent significant time in the UK may not | appreciate the significance that pbus have played in the UK | culture and social structure. Pubs have for many eyars been a | social nexus. You wouldn't even go to drink necessarily but just | go by default because that's what everyone else was doing. | | These are quite typically "locals" rather than going somewhere to | go to a pub in particular. | | So this is really a long term trend in the changing social | structure of the UK. Pubs are becoming less important socially, | probably conciding with the rise of Internet culture and online | connectedness. But also real estate prices come into play. Pubs | sit on some valuable land, particularly in London. Costs go up to | the point where you might be paying 8 pounds for a pint. That | gets really expensive. | | I haven't seen anything close to this in the US. Take something | like the bar in How I Met Your Mother. Obviously this is all | fictional and these characters spen da lot of time there but it's | still portrayed as extremely intentional, meaning plans are made | to meet there. UK pub culture doesn't tend to be that intentional | about meeting particular people but rather hanging out where | others may or may not show up. | zimpenfish wrote: | > probably conciding with the rise of Internet culture and | online connectedness | | Possibly also related to the greater ease of accessing, e.g., | sports on TV compared with 10-15 years ago - now you don't need | a satellite dish etc., you can just stream Sky Sports over the | internet which cuts out the need to find a pub showing whatever | match you wanted (assuming you're not doing it as a social | activity.) | bencollier49 wrote: | Pubs were closing long before the internet appeared, albeit in | smaller numbers. | | The main driver, in my opinion, is specialisation. We've got a | much more professional workforce these days, with more | specialist skills, who for this reason often have to travel for | some distance to get to their places of work. That means far | less time to go to the pub. Combined with modern media, it's | just easier to sit indoors. People have posted other points | elsewhere on this thread - they're all contributing (plus drink | driving laws and smoking bans). | | I mean, a lot of people used to stop working at lunchtime and | spend the afternoon in the pub. | | Now, if home working holds up, and then inflation abates a bit, | perhaps pubs might regain an advantage, but I fear we're now in | a new "steady state", and it'd take more to change things back. | selimthegrim wrote: | You should try visiting New Orleans. | OJFord wrote: | > UK pub culture doesn't tend to be that intentional about | meeting particular people but rather hanging out where others | may or may not show up. | | Interesting, other than 'the locals' propping up the bar, | that's not my experience at all. | | I think going to each other's homes (on a smaller scale and in | a less organised way than 'a party') is more common now. For | whatever reason, I wouldn't like to say, could be fashion, | could be the other side of 'the pub is too expensive', or | something else. | Atheros wrote: | I want to raise another contributor: volume. At most bars in | large cities, if I'm in a group of six people, I can not hear | someone talking who isn't sitting directly next to me. | | The parent commenter said "Take something like the bar in | [the television show] How I Met Your Mother. Obviously this | is all fictional and these characters spend a lot of time | there". The only reason they can meet there and hear each | other is because the bar is silent and they're actually on a | sound stage. Watch _any_ show where any characters interact | at a bar: they talk comfortably in a way that would not work | in real life. | | Bars and restaurants have simply gotten measurably louder to | the point where people are choosing to meet at home instead. | When English Pubs and U.S. speakeasies became popular, | amplified music was not a thing. Even the name "speakeasy" | comes from the fact that people could and did speak quietly | in the bars! | | > But consider a 1993 study of about a dozen dining | establishments, which found that sound levels peaked at 68 | decibels (a little louder than normal chitchat). Compare that | with a much larger 2018 survey of New York City restaurants, | in which one-quarter hit at least 81 decibels (more like a | garbage disposal), the average level was 77, and just 10 | percent were 70 decibels or below. The report deemed those | "quiet." | | https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/restaurant-noise- | lev... | | Scientific papers abound | | https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=. | .. | | > There are increasing numbers of reports from patrons | complaining about the difficulty in conversing with fellow | diners due to loud venues. In Zagat's 2016 Annual Survey, | when surveyors were asked what irritated them the most about | dining out, noise was the second highest complaint (25%) | behind poor service (28%). But in major urban cities of San | Francisco, Boston, Portland and New York City, noise was the | number one complaint [34] | viraptor wrote: | > Even the name "speakeasy" comes from the fact that people | could and did speak quietly in the bars! | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakeasy | | The more common explanation is that it's a place where you | have to speak easy to not attract attention. | | It makes sense too, since without amplified music being | popular why would the speakeasy be specifically quiet | rather than just "like everywhere else". | OJFord wrote: | Very good point. | | It's worse than not fixing it, the trend is to make it | worse, by removing soft furnishings etc. | | Saw an article recently on loud restaurants (the loudest in | the world are in London, followed by SF iirc) - the top few | in London were measured as so loud that per the law (I | assume it's not known/adhered to) they have to provide | staff with hearing protection from the injurious volume! | dpeck wrote: | This is a huge thing to me and many others who I've spoken | with. My spouse seems to be able to handle it just fine, | but to me it's just a wall of sound all around me and it | has led to frustration that they cannot hear me and I | cannot hear them. | | It's become true at even many very "nice" restaurants as | the open kitchen, open spaces, and hard surfaces everywhere | aesthetic has taken over nearly everything. | maerek wrote: | Strong seconding here. I have a low voice that doesn't | travel well in noisy environments. It's pretty tiring | having to shout an entire night out just to converse | across the table. | xyzzy123 wrote: | IMHO an under-appreciated side effect of rising property values | is the destruction of third places | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place), a role that pubs | often filled in the UK. As land values rise the pressure to | make a return on any given space goes up. Leads to fewer places | to "hang out" without strong pressure to spend money. | OscarCunningham wrote: | Damn. Working from home I don't even have a second place. | codeulike wrote: | _... pbus ... eyars ..._ | | - typed while in the pbu, clearly | rrodgers wrote: | I'd be curious if the loss of social cohesion/connection offsets | the reduction of alcohol (if that really occurs) - does dementia | rise in small villages that lose pubs - or does it fall? | chippy wrote: | Curious too about trade off of increased health but wrt | isolation: in small villages / rural areas, the community is | more tight-knit generally - you get more social isolation in | urban areas, particularly for older folks. | | There was a recent paper done on social isolation in the UK - | but heres one for the usa: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30609155/ | pcrh wrote: | It would be interesting to compare the number of pubs with the | total number of establishments that cater to eating and drinking, | e.g. including cafes, restaurants, night clubs, etc. | pm90 wrote: | Bars and Pubs are a very "boomer" sorta place imo. Personally I | do like going to them sometimes, but the people there are | generally older. The younger groups are either there with work | buddies or for some event, or are tourists. Notable exception are | clubs, which are still dominated by the young. | | The ones that do well today IMO are the ones that experiment with | their food offerings. Instead of the standard fare (greasy fries, | burgers etc) they offer legitimately good food and | vegetarian/vegan options and salads/tacos. | | I think its fine. Beers/Ales are worse health wise than the more | refined liquors. These establishments just need to change to | reflect the tastes of their clientele. | genocidicbunny wrote: | I wonder how much on an effect prices have in this. | | It's gotten more and more expensive to go out drinking, while the | prices for alcohol haven't risen commensurately in my area. When | you're paying almost the cost of a bottle of cheap rum for a | single drink, suddenly drinking at home starts to make a lot more | sense. Why spend $20 on a drink when you can for the same money | buy a bottle of cheap alcohol, some mixers and snacks and have | yourself and your friends a merry night? | | On a side note, this made me wonder why prices on alcohol haven't | gone up all that much, despite the recent inflation. Most of the | prices for alcohol at my nearby grocery store are the same as | they were last year and the year before. | nemo44x wrote: | It's amazing to hear these stats and then drive around England | and be astonished how many pubs there are. On high streets, town | centers, neighborhoods, etc. Just think how many there were! | | I love pub culture and always look forward to a bitter when | traveling to the UK. | phphphphp wrote: | The record low is a part of a long term trend, the numbers have | been falling year over year for the last few decades -- this | headline is somewhat misleading. The pandemic and changing | economic environment may hasten their demise, but it has been | long coming. | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/310723/total-number-of-p... | mike_hock wrote: | Sounds like an extremely alarming trend! Why is no-one doing | anything? Where are they gonna go to get hammered? | InCityDreams wrote: | Cannaboids. | jamal-kumar wrote: | One factor that's important not to overlook is that younger | people, especially in developed nations, are drinking much less | in recent years, even after the COVID-19 lockdown. [1] It's just | not really fashionable anymore. Everyone I know under the age of | 25 or so, and (A smaller amount of) older people I know as well | who have grown out of thinking being drunk is fun, are looking at | it more as a quick way to get fat and sad. | | [1] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/sep/analysis-our-survey- | show... | bloodyplonker22 wrote: | > younger people, especially in developed nations, are drinking | much less in recent years, even after the COVID-19 lockdown. | [1] It's just not really fashionable anymore. | | and then you link to a 2020 article that analyzes drinking | DURING lockdown. Well, of course it's going to be lower during | lockdown in the initial phase of covid. What you've said is | bloody misleading. | | > Everyone I know under the age of 25 or so, and (A smaller | amount of) older people I know as well who have grown out of | thinking being drunk is fun, are looking at it more as a quick | way to get fat and sad. | | It's always binary to you people. Drinking moderately can be | social and fun, but to you, it's only to get drunk and hammered | and fat and sad. | FredPret wrote: | To "you people" doesn't set a constructive tone. | bloodyplonker22 wrote: | cto_of_antifa wrote: | mnd999 wrote: | Instagram ruined everything. | pydry wrote: | It was always a pricey hobby and wages have stagnated. I think | that was the main driver - the rest is post hoc | rationalization. | | Ditto with smoking. | madeofpalk wrote: | Personally, the whole covid situ, and working from home just | taught me to go over to friends places and drink at home rather | than some shitty pub with expensive drinks that I don't like. | AnonymousPlanet wrote: | This sounds more like people going to pubs to get hammered | instead of going there to be social. The beer gardens around | here are full of people enjoying a cold one. No one goes there | to get drunk. Same with the pubs (mostly). Tons of young people | there. Maybe we just have a different pub culture on the | continent? | neaden wrote: | How much of a business profit comes from people getting drunk | though? One serious drinker might spend as much a small group | of people just enjoying a beer or two. | AdvancedCarrot wrote: | I live in the UK and honestly from what I've seen at least | nice beer gardens are doing great, and even many of the | regular pubs aren't necessarily doing badly. | | I think people do like going out for a drink (and certainly | not just to get drunk), rather I think the bigger problem is | that its become far too expensive for many. | mmarq wrote: | Adults in the UK drink to get drunk, like Italian 15 year | olds. It is different for young adults, who are adopting a | more "continental" approach to alcohol. | syndacks wrote: | "I don't drink, thanks. I just do hard drugs." | baq wrote: | Personally, the primary reason is hangovers take waaaaay too | much time after 30 | rightbyte wrote: | I thought it was due to me drinking way less ofent and thus | losing resistance. Are you sure? | ezekiel11 wrote: | btw I hear this a lot from North American/English speaking | parts of the world but less in others. There seems to be more | tolerance/less judgement towards drinking alcohol, its seen | as an integral part of socializing, almost to a fault in some | cultures. I wonder if this is some pre-emptive virtue | signaling,since if you break it down, hangovers is largely | the result of dehydration and loss of minerals. It might be | that as you get older you retain less fluid or something, i | do not know, just guessin. | | having said that, i can go without drinking. you tend to | increase consumption in bursts, social events. it can cause a | lot of societal problems (ex. south korea/russia) and | combined with tobacco (ex. south korea/japan), its right up | there in terms of toxicity with combining cocaine and alcohol | (dramatically/needlessly increases toxicity). | | One might make the same judgement about cocaine hangovers or | any substance for that matter. | bloqs wrote: | This is common incorrect assumption, it's due to tolerance | and consistency of drinking habits, including hydration and | liver health. | barry-cotter wrote: | This seems extremely unlikely to be true, based on personal | experience and that of many other people. Sources? | [deleted] | standardUser wrote: | There's no reason hangovers should be any worse in your 30's | or 40's. Hangovers are mostly the result of poor drinking | habits. | robonerd wrote: | Ha, and what bad drinking habits would those be? The | popular answer is "drink water", but I didn't do that when | I was young and I didn't have hangovers then. These days if | I drink two beers and even twice as much fresh water, I'll | be miserable the morning after. Consequently, I don't go to | bars anymore and I buy a sixpack at the grocery store maybe | two or three times a year. | justinhj wrote: | I would guess that this is just because young people have | more energy and healing ability, both of which | deteriorate with age | 14 wrote: | This is exactly why I quit drinking and have been sober | for almost 2 years. I kept finding that one or two beers | and I would feel like crap or get headaches the next day. | I know about the drink water trick and it didn't help. So | finally gave up drinking and don't miss it. Also other | reasons to quit as other commenters mentioned is the | price. Going out for a drink costs a lot of money. Just | food and a non alcoholic drink cost me over $20. A couple | alcoholic drinks would cost me 1/3 days pay. I would much | rather not. | jacquesm wrote: | Yes, such as drinking to the point of getting drunk. | the_only_law wrote: | The effects are great (for many but not all), and bars can be | nice are if you're drunk, but the cost is just so heavy. | hyperbovine wrote: | Ever tried getting drunk in an English pub? It's surprisingly | difficult. | bowsamic wrote: | The problem is not just that the alcohol is expensive in pubs | (it's actually cheaper than a lot of European countries) but | that also the alcohol in the shops is very expensive. I think | that is why alcohol use has become so unpopular. Not only is | it a less pleasurable drug than others, but it's actually | becoming more expensive than them, even at home | tailspin2019 wrote: | Name your time and place. Perhaps you're doing it wrong :) | collegeburner wrote: | Also bars got shitty prices these days. Most people pregame | before they actually go out so they buy less there bc its too | fucking expensive to get drunk out. Seems like prices at bars | go up even faster than prices for alcohol retail. | hbn wrote: | I'm far too cheap to order more than a drink or 2 at bars, | but it tends to mean I keep a bottle of something at home | which makes it dangerously easy to go too fast/hard | sergers wrote: | I have always looked at it as a social activity, than sole | reason to be getting drunk. | | With my friends, if you wanted to get drunk, it w as s never at | a pub, we were too cheap. | | We would just drink at home. | | In general, people are less outgoing, not specific to pubs. | | Look at restaurant closures in your area, retail stores etc... | I bet the pub lines up with these | crmd wrote: | I'm an American (New York city) and I originally met most of my | friends at the neighborhood coffee shops and bars. Most people | don't go there specifically to caffeinate and get drunk, it's | just the third place (outside work and home) where people go to | socialize. | iasay wrote: | In the UK we have some serious social drinking issues unlike | America where a couple of beers is perfectly fine. I prefer | going to a bar in the US than a pub here because it's a decent | social event. | ezekiel11 wrote: | The other day I was listening to Raoul speak on Real Vision, and | apart from his weird angle that crypto will survive this cycle | (it wont), he mentions demographic time bomb that is about to hit | our Western economy. | | The basic gist is that baby boomers will drastically curtail | their spending by 60% because of the retirement pension is | broken. It is essentially a ponzi scheme that will not be able to | pay out everybody without huge erosion to currency and its | literally the last thing a world reserve currency like US is | going to want (a hegemony is only as good as its status as a | world reserve currency). so without a sound pension/retirement | guarantee, the only way to hedge against future grey swan is to | retain capital as much as possible by curtailing spending. This | is similar to what happened to in Japan, they would drastically | cut spending while increasing savings following the '89 asset | bubble brust, followed by deflation. Now the situation is getting | out of hand due to supply chain and energy supply issues but | eventually the belief is that price inflation post-pandemic will | not last. For example, the watch collectibles market appears to | be showing signs of stress, as market values of previously | inflated (on purpose?) watches have begun to come down in price | as buyers tighten their wallets. The JM gold green dial daytona | is a good example of the asset bubble. The first market usually | to lead deflationary events is the luxury goods section, followed | by mainstream consumer goods that simply cannot find enough | buyers at the current inflated price. | | Taking this a bit further then, there is a huge looming crisis to | all sectors of the consumer/leisure economy. Pubs I think are on | the decline as a result of inflation and warning signs of further | curtailment of spending. This is a very nasty situation to be in | because in the past we've been able to swing out of crisis by | simply printing money and keeping the consumption rate constant, | central banks simply have exhausted their monetary velocity, and | could easily stand to lose control of the situation leading to | Japan's near 40 year stagnation. | | The common belief about grey/black swans is a zealous/elastic | band like reaction the remotest idea that it could happen here. | anti-fragile or not, a multi-decade change in consumption will | set a country back for decades. | | Perhaps it is this weakness that Putin saw, and EU's reliance on | it's energy/commodities, that he chose to gamble on what he saw | as a looming demographic crisis on his end (number of young males | available for conscript has peaked and is on the decline). Unlike | technologically advanced militaries like EU/US which can absorb | this demographic decline, Russia's security guarantees besides | its nuclear deterence is largely on numbers. For this reason I | believe that Xi is going to emulate Putin to a certain degree in | the Taiwan strait. | | The US is in a better situation, but it also faces a decline in | its population and must continue to increase immigration, one | that it is increasingly unwilling to do as populism demand rise | as cost of living increases. | | We are in unprecedented territory now and the content of this | article reads familiar to what we've seen in previous downturns, | except that we have a huge monetary excess debt from '08 money | print frenzy. | | I am not convinced the US hegemony will go away any time soon but | I am wary as to whether we are going through what South America | did up until 90s, a series of populism that swung the country to | authoritarianism and ugliness that rose from that. | | This is the connections I made after reading this article and | looking at consumption trends in other sectors. | odiroot wrote: | Coming from a country with a huge alcoholism problem, I welcome | any trend that shows decrease in alcohol consumption. | | Now living in England, I'm amazed how people just take their cars | to a pub and drive back home like it's nothing. And considering | how busy my local pub is, some do it on a daily basis. | pm90 wrote: | Wait really? For some reason I thought the transit was great in | Cities in England... that would seem like the better option, | no? | rocgf wrote: | Public transport is pretty good in the UK, but not to the | point of being able to live without a car for a large portion | of the population. In London, there is the tube and driving | in the city is quite dreadful, so I guess that is the | exception, but I would say that the UK is pretty car-centric | overall. | orobinson wrote: | They may not live in a city. Even tiny villages in the UK | will have a pub and some pubs are literally just on their own | in the middle of nowhere. I grew up in a small town in | eastern England and people would drive from the surrounding | villages to go to the pubs there and then drive home after | several drinks. Drink driving outside of cities is | unfortunately very common. | chrisseaton wrote: | > I'm amazed how people just take their cars to a pub and drive | back home like it's nothing | | In England and Wales people often take their children to pubs. | So not everyone's drinking alcohol - many are having food or | just non-alcoholic drinks. | | If you think someone going to a restaurant or cafe and driving | home isn't madness, then neither is someone going to the pub in | England or Wales. | prvit wrote: | I think I'd rather have slightly inebriated drivers than | people letting their kids drive them home. | chrisseaton wrote: | I mean not all adults in pubs are drinking. | fleddr wrote: | Another article I read called the pub "England's living room". It | fits the stories my brother told as he used to work in England | (we're from the Netherlands). He'd describe that workers would | immediately continue to the pub after work, after which their | wife would bring a home-cooked meal directly to the pub. And the | children might visit for an hour or so too. | | Anyway, different times. Some trends I'm spotting in the | Netherlands that I suspect would also apply to the UK: | | Young people drink far less than before. When they do drink, they | may first home drink cheaply and only then attend a pub (or club) | extremely late at night. Others rarely attend a pub at all and | prefer infrequent big events like concerts, where often they pop | a cheap XTC pill and drink two sodas. | | And yet another group are truly "digital natives", my nephew is | one of them. Their idea of a great Saturday night is to play a | multiplayer game online. They never go anywhere, they rarely ever | meet new people. | | Still, it's not just young people. Over here middle-aged (and | older) people also seem to come far less than before. I think | this has to do with life being so damn fast and busy, it's much | different compared to a few decades earlier. | | You can't really stop it, times change. Still it saddens me to | see another socially important physical place go the way of the | dodo. | onion2k wrote: | I'm trying my best to keep them going. | varispeed wrote: | In the younger generation, people are not so much interested in | drinking alcohol. Many prefer to relax with cannabis, but it is | illegal for "recreational" purposes. So going to pub, then going | somewhere to smoke, then coming back to pub was just tedious and | risky. Especially that police likes to harass people minding | their own business and if they are from ethnic minorities. That | combined with the cost of living crisis, means it's cheaper and | more comfortable to meet at ones home or somewhere in the park. | citrin_ru wrote: | Many pubs in England are operating since XIII - XIV centuries. | It's a living history. Would be sad to see them gone. | 202206241203 wrote: | It's only more visible than people being Airbnb-d out of their | native towns. | mdavis6890 wrote: | We should impose mandatory-minimums for alcohol consumption. I | think 10 drinks/wk should do it. | kawsper wrote: | In pre-pandemic times I worked from home and to get out a bit | during a day I would have a coffee and work from the local pub. | | Depending on the time of day I showed up there would always be | the regular pensioners starting their first drink of the day | around 11:00, then around 12:30-13:00 the lunch crowd from the | nearby offices would show up and sometimes after that there would | be a birthday event or a funeral wake, then it would quiten down | again until 17:00-18:00 when families showed up for dinner, and | later than that the drinking crowd would show up and it would | become too lively to sit and code. | | Pubs in the UK works as family restaurants (with a bar) but they | are a place of social gathering, and they cater to all sort of | different types of business. | s8s8discourse wrote: | There isn't sufficient margin in drink to float a pub. The margin | is in food (and to an extent, dispensed soft drinks). | | Because priority becomes food over drink, people are willing (and | able) to drive further for a better pub. Competition increases | and you don't need a 'local' for every village or part of town | anymore. Less pubs can serve more people because rather than | regulars "propping up the bar" 3-5 nights a week for an extended | session, you get restaurant-esque table turnover. | | This is desirable for landlords - they often live above their | pubs - profit from food service means you can shut earlier, you | don't have regular fights or trouble from drunk customers and | general toil is lower. | | But some publicans just won't (or can't) adapt. They won't or | can't invest in kitchen and chef. They can't or won't learn how | to market and attract new, younger customers. Inflation, energy | pricing, COVID shutdowns et al have all just accelerated the | demise of the "pub pub". | | The old "pub pub" crowd are now well served by the Wetherspoons, | who have the advantage of controlling their margins in ways | Brewery landlords can't compete with (mass purchasing, pre- | prepared food, all their pubs are "new" buildings that don't have | the insane maintenance and insurance overheads of a 200+ year old | pub building etcetc). | | We may be at a record low, but I suspect we'll be setting new | lows for some years to come yet. | | src: family of publicans from 193Xs ~> 200X. Tried to buy a pub | at the 'end' of COVID restrictions. | KennyBlanken wrote: | > There isn't sufficient margin in drink to float a pub. The | margin is in food (and to an extent, dispensed soft drinks). | | In the US, the exact opposite is true. Alcohol sales are where | the money is made (and yes, soft drink sales, but there's | usually far less of that in an actual bar.) Food has nowhere | near the profit margin. Multiple restaurant owners have told me | this for years. | | Why is it the opposite in the UK? | smcl wrote: | The food in many of these pubs is of very low quality and is | designed to be quickly prepared (reheated) at scale with no | complex steps involved. After a short time in the UK you can | quickly tell what sort of food you can expect in a given pub, | so I think most Brits know what they're getting. Personally, | I think this (plus the fact that a large amount of the | population _take pride_ in enjoying shit food) give the UK a | bad reputation re food. | | And you'd actually be surprised how much soft drinks are | served in pubs. They're _very_ low wastage - so if your | company budgets that X% will be lost for some reason, you 'll | very likely undershoot that and have only X/2% wasted. | Additionally you can adjust the syrup/carbonated water mix so | that your margins for each serving are higher. The dodgy pub | I worked at as a student frequently used soft drinks as a way | to balance stock in case of wastage (or in the case of a | corrupt assistant manager, theft). Towards the end of a given | stock-keeping period (monthly?) we'd often be told something | like "Tennent's is down, ring it up in the tills as 3 small | diet cokes" - meaning that there is less of a given beer in | the stock room than expected when accounting for how much we | ordered and how much we sold, and to correct for this we'd | use take advantage of the surplus of coke stock (after a | price adjustment) to try to counteract this. God help you if | anyone asked for a receipt and accused you of swindling them | ... | workingon wrote: | This is so strange, and the exact opposite of America. In | America margins on drink are 100-200%+ while margins on food | are much less when you take into account untipped workers | fixing it. It must be the tipping difference, since bartenders | are basically free labor in America. | bavent wrote: | Wow, this is complete opposite of America. I have run several | bars/restaurants and most of our money came from alcohol sales. | Food was still profitable, but much tighter margins. A lot more | labor goes into the food side of the business too, and we | couldn't get away with marking things up 4x like you can with | wine. | | I think as you get into Michelin-starred places, the name of | the chef and the quality of the food is enough to allow you to | charge more, and also to cheap out on labor - some of the top | restaurants in Chicago collude to pay their cooks $10-12/hr, | for example. | algorias wrote: | I'd think those low wages are also partly explained by the | desirability of working at a top place (good for your CV and | for acquiring actual skills). Pretty similar to how the game | industry attracts talent out of proportion to the monetary | compensation they pay. | bavent wrote: | They're 100% explained by that, not just partially. At all | of the top-rated restaurants in every city I've cooked in, | all the chefs are buddies. It's very common for there to be | a tacit agreement to just not pay more than $X, that way | they can all keep labor costs down. | heavyset_go wrote: | I was under the impression that margins on alcohol were huge. | At least where I am, proprietors trip over themselves to get | alcohol licenses, and those licenses go for hefty premiums. | tamade wrote: | Having invested in this business before, the margin is entirely | in alcohol. Typical drink costs <50p and sold for >20x. Food | has nowhere near those margins given the labor and materials | required. | jimjambw wrote: | Not saying I don't believe you but why would a Brit leave out | the 'u' in labour? | benbristow wrote: | > The old "pub pub" crowd are now well served by the | Wetherspoons, who have the advantage of controlling their | margins in ways Brewery landlords can't compete with (mass | purchasing, pre-prepared food, all their pubs are "new" | buildings that don't have the insane maintenance and insurance | overheads of a 200+ year old pub building etcetc). | | Bit untrue on your last statement. Wetherspoons have a habit of | occupying traditional/landmark buildings. For all the negative | they do against the independent pub trade by outpricing with | their brewery deals they do a cracking job in preservation by | using & maintaining old buildings that would otherwise go to | ruin. | | Just in Glasgow for example you've got The Counting House | (George Square) which was an old premises of the Bank Of | Scotland in the late 19th century and The Crystal Palace also | built in the 19th century which houses one of the oldest | lift/elevator installations in the UK. | hintymad wrote: | Eh... Good thing? As someone who does not have the genes to | produce ADH2, I can never appreciate alcohol or the euphoria of | getting tipsy. Employees in my previous startups in SF openly | stocked and drank lots of liquor, which made me uneasy too. It | was also very frustrating that engineers in Dropbox of early days | used to socialize and design their systems in noisy bars over | hard liquor. | [deleted] | helloworld11 wrote: | So, because you yourself get no joy from alcohol, it frustrates | you and makes you "uneasy" to see any situation where others | do? Consequently, anything that forces them to consume much | less is a good thing? Why? Why should others' personal pleasure | bother you in the first place? I comment because this is a | sadly selfish attitude that's far too common among many people | about many things. | [deleted] | codeulike wrote: | This is a trend that has been steadily continuing for at least 20 | years | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/310723/total-number-of-p... | | Imho alcohol is historically way too prominent in UK culture so | its a relief to learn that people are finally finding something | else to do with their time | | edit: 30 year trend in this paper: | https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-04 23:00 UTC)