A few days ago, I linked to an article by food writer Jay Rayner setting out a listing of sometimes uncomfortable home truths about the food and restaurant industries. I invited suggestions for similar points about the world of pubs and beer, and what follows is a collection of the best of these, some my own, some submitted by others. Most of these are thoughts on the running of pubs. Please note that I don’t necessarily wholly endorse all these points.
- Always provide beermats. Nobody wants tables sopping with spilt beer.
- People do not queue to be served at the bar of a pub.
- Music should be played to suit the customers, not the bar staff.
- Keep to regular hours and make sure they are well publicised, including displaying them on the door.
- If you have a website or social media page, keep them up to date.
- The hospitality business is about hospitality. Nobody wants to be served by miserable staff who think the job or the punters are beneath them.
- If you must have seating at the bar, leave a dedicated space for people to be served.
- If there’s a crush at the bar, customers feel much better if you’ve at least acknowledged their presence.
- Don't leave doors open when it's cold.
- Opening doors and windows on a sunny day does not warm the interior of a pub.
- Italic script lettering painted on the outside wall of a pub is always a bad sign.
- “Please wait here to be seated” has no place in a pub.
- Seat reservations for drinkers should be a total no-no.
- Nobody ever walked out of a pub because there were no posing tables.
- Do not use your customers as unpaid quality control.
- Compromising on cask beer quality is a false economy.
- Price is about status not quality. If you like cask beer, the cheaper pubs get the turnover and have a better pint. If you find a pub full of working class blokes drinking pints of bitter and not Carling it will be a great pint.
- Jam jars showing the colour of cask beers are a pointless affectation for regular beers.
- Unless a customer is being obviously arsey, never quibble about changing unsatisfactory beer.
- Serving beer in the wrong branded glass is worse than in an unbranded glass. Invest in some glasses branded with your pub name.
- Throw away old scratched and pitted glasses.
- Make the prices of draught beers clearly visible at the point of sale.
- Any attempt to launch a lower-strength variant of an existing beer brand is doomed to failure, and may well end up undermining the parent brand.
- Beers with seasonal themes such as Hallowe'en and Christmas are almost invariably disappointing, and too often guilty of appalling puns.
- The culture of ever-changing guest beers militates against efforts to establish a price premium for cask ale.
- Make sure you regularly clean and restock the toilets.
- Avoid any establishment calling itself something “…and kitchen”
- If you serve food, put menus out on the tables. Even if customers aren’t eating, they may read them and be encouraged to return for a meal.
- You have to decide whether you are primarily a sports pub or a dining pub. You can’t be both at the same time.
- Don’t serve sandwiches and similar snacks with chips as a default option – give customers the choice.
- Treat tea and coffee as menu items, not bar items.
There's not much there that I would disagree with, Mudge.
ReplyDeleteI fell victim to the bar-blocking crowd, yesterday. It's almost as if these, perched on stools, bar-flies, don't want anyone else being served in "their" pub, but it's also poor management on the part of the licensee.
Rows of stools at the bar - often with backs - does seem to be a particular phenomenon of the South-East.
Delete"stools ...... with backs ...... a particular phenomenon of the South-East" - hence the name Windsor Chair !
DeleteThe other week I watching the bar area in 3 cygnets and swan sam smiths pub in Durham and noticed that when it got busy there with student types they formed a queue, lasted about 5 minutes and then disappeared.
ReplyDeleteNow take your Pub Manifesto to the CAMRA AGM and make it policy !
ReplyDeleteTrue pub men would vote for you.
Disapppointment at the non-inclusion of my important theory about cats no being allowed in pubs but dogs should ( with the proviso they stay on the floor where they belong. "
ReplyDeleteI've a feeling it could be a North-South thing because clearly any feller north of of Watford who purrs at the thought of cats crawling over him while supping a pint is obviously a barmpot.
It feels slightly gay too...
You didn't seriously expect me to include that one, did you? >^..^<
DeleteAlthough "Not admitting dogs will seriously damage the business of country pubs" could have been a contender.
Your gaff your rules etc but I wonder if one of your famous polls on t'internet could help in this matter ? And like Remoaners on the Brexit vote you could completely ignore it and pretend it didn't happen.
DeleteSo what specific question would you like me to ask?
DeleteI'm not sure if I'm qualified to comment on here - I'm not a CAMRA member, didn't go to university, I like my brown bitters and don't like cats. Oh, and I don't have a G****e account - I did once but never again. Hate them with a passion.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I can't say I disagree with any of this, except perhaps the point about jam jars. You need them for the regular beers to provide a frame of reference for the colours of the guests.
And may I add a few of my own?
* Don't close at 10.00pm, that's a nasty Boris Johnson thing. Nobody even thought about closing at 10pm before 2020. If you can't justify opening on certain weekday evenings then don't, otherwise close at 11pm or later.
* Learn the meanings of 'last orders', 'closing time' and 'drinking-up time' and apply them correctly.
* Train your staff to NOT call customers 'mate' (applies to everyone from Sir Tim Martin downwards).
* Hand dryers in toilets need regular servicing!
I'd question "If you serve food, put menus out on the tables" which should surely be for beermats.
ReplyDeleteAtherstone's White Horse yesterday had a menu clearly displayed in the front window. And another improvement from last year was that at the bar counter I was only served my Bass and asked to go towards the rear of the pub for my food, so the front half's a proper pub, the rear half's almost a restaurant and everybody is happy, rather like having a No Smoking room years ago.
And there's Draught Bass in more and more of Atherstone's pubs as its undoubtedly becoming the proper beer of the Midlands.