As a counterpoint to yesterday’s post, here are a few things in pubs that for me are an instant turn-off.
- The name of the pub displayed on the outside wall in a script font
- It is described as “Something” & Kitchen
- Part of the building painted in dark grey, blue, red or green
- You are asked at the door or at the bar whether you are eating with them
- A menu lacking pounds signs and trailing zeroes
- Charges a substantial premium for half pints
- Modern polished wood floors
- An abundance of posing tables
- Long wooden forms with no backs
- Place settings on all or most of the tables
- Many tables too big for a party of four
- Motivational quotes on the walls
- Uniformed bar staff
- An elaborate display of wine and spirit bottles on the bar back with no clutter from notices or bags of snacks
- An interior colour scheme of cold pastels
- Deliberately curated “mellow” music
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Scatter cushions, even if you can move them.
ReplyDeleteThose little jam jars that look like specimen bottles.
Any more than one hand pump.
People asking for tasters.
No, scatter cushions are now so common that they no longer really say anything about a pub.
DeleteIf we're doing beer ranges, four beers you've never heard of from obscure micros in a non-specialist pub.
Jam jars for Doom Bar and Landlord are just ridiculous.
A wall of CAMRA pub of the month awards. You know it's going to be dreadful.
ReplyDeleteWorst of all, a long service award, meaning the Landlord has reluctantly served a diacetyl-tinged London Pride for 30 years and is about to get in the GBG the year he retires.
DeleteAnd scatter cushions.
Cats on the bar and cat hair in your pint, soft furnishings on the chairs, modernly decorated.
ReplyDeleteYou're just trying to wind our Mudgie up now, aren't you ?. Cats are life.
DeleteCat hair in your beer is a sign that there are cats >^..^<
DeleteBouncers at the door - especially if it's not a Friday or Saturday evening
ReplyDelete"Anything else ?" on ordering a pint as if I wouldn't have said if there was.
ReplyDelete"No problem" on ordering a pint. "Of course it's not a problem" I mutter.
Customers asking for a taster.
Customers asking if there's a discount for members.
Customers sat on stools blocking access to the bar.
Meals served in the Public Bar.
Scatter brained barstaff.
Short measure.
Television screens switched on.
Tight sparklers.
Uncouth customers drinking from the bottle.
Unknown beers.
Rodents, sticky carpets, sticky tables, politically motivated magazines and posters.
Are you me ? I forgot "Unknown beers".
DeleteNo staff behind the bar.
DeleteErratic opening hours which are a well kept secret.
No hand pumps
ReplyDeleteA bar person who just tips a bottle of beer upside down into a tumbler.
ReplyDeleteResulting in glass of head and bottle with liquid still in it tossed in the bin.
One who cannot notice or remember the order in which customers approach the bar, or ignores women.
One who starts pouring the Guinness last.
Or one who just hates the public, and makes it obvious. Why do these people take the job.
A choice of several grapefruit-flavoured beers, or Doom Bar.
ReplyDeleteQuirky furniture (converted beer barrels etc). Bars fitted out in all pine/light coloured wood (floor, walls, ceiling and bar) - dislike this far more than overuse of grey or deep colours.
ReplyDeleteBeing shown to a table is an instant red flag. Other than that I'm kind of easy. Most London pubs now have done a good job of segregating any restaurant potion from the drinking part. The clues are there if you look for them, and maybe the only way they can realistically survive. I have little time for restaurants that masquerade as pubs with no room for drinkers though.
ReplyDeleteScruffy unwashed and unshaven people smoking outside.
ReplyDeleteAntisemitic and pro-terrorist material on display. Songs supporting terrorists being played.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with all the items on your list, but would also add toilet signs that are also a quiz! Ram and Ewe, Buck and Doe, Cob and Pen, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso pubs that only accept card payments, not only is this short sighted, it can discriminate against some in society. I was recently in a pub that had to close when all the chip and pin machines would not connect to WiFi.
An obnoxious twat of a landlord who harangues a young girl on her first shift in front of the entire pub because she struggled with a lively head on a pint from a new barrel.
ReplyDeleteIt happened recently in one of my new locals.I finished the last pint I'll ever drink in there again and walked out never to return.
Tosser.
Could probably add a few 'smells to make the heart sink' too... I really don't like walking into a pub that smells of food/cooking. It's supposed to be a pub. And while I don't like to smell a shitty (or indeed uriney) toilet while drinking, I also really dislike the smell of cleaning products or air freshener spray as well. For me pubs should have a fairly neutral but vaguely beery aroma. Maybe a hint of slightly damp timber. And, ideally, aromatic tobacco, but that ship has sadly long sailed...
ReplyDeleteAfter the smoking ban was introduced, it was widely observed that the smell of tobacco smoke had obscured all kinds of offputting aromas in pubs. Another one is human sweat.
Delete