Saturday, 15 March 2025

Pub pointers

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.

6 comments:

  1. There's not much there that I would disagree with, Mudge.

    I 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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rows of stools at the bar - often with backs - does seem to be a particular phenomenon of the South-East.

      Delete
    2. "stools ...... with backs ...... a particular phenomenon of the South-East" - hence the name Windsor Chair !

      Delete
  2. The 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.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now take your Pub Manifesto to the CAMRA AGM and make it policy !
    True pub men would vote for you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Professor Pie-Tin16 March 2025 at 17:17

    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. "
    I'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...

    ReplyDelete

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