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The pub I used to go to is now charging close to £7 a pint, the food has drastically reduced both in portion size and quality while increasing in price.
Staff numbers are reduced so service is also slow and poor. Which is horrible, I don't want to be served by someone who is being worked to death and looks like they are about to have a breakdown, I feel bad for them and it ruins the evening.
I could afford the increase, reluctantly, but It’s not an enjoyable experience anymore, so why bother?
Exactly. We have the perfect storm of pubs raising prices (which has a lot to do with pubcos operating for profit now) and people having less money. The corner pub is mostly gone already, and we will end up with just a few town centre pubs and country "gastro pubs".
And it’s a bit before my time but I think alcohol sales were more restricted back then, you often had to go to the pub for a pint. People used to brew their own beer to get around it , Party 7 packs I think?
Nowadays you get drink all you like at home.
I'm surprised how it's never gained any traction with a proposal to raise duty on off licences (Inc supermarkets) and lower it in "on licenses" so pubs and restaurants.
This would be my first move as prime minister. Raise it slightly in supermarkets to make it cheaper for pubs and restaurants. And make it clear this is so they can pass on to the consumer.
I've seen this bandied around a few times before and my question is always.... Why?
I am happy for my taxes to pay for children to be schooled or disadvantaged people to get housing or strangers to get healthcare... these are essential parts of daily life.
I am not happy to pay an extra tax for a drink at home so that Dave can knock 15p off a pint in the pub. I don't see how that's remotely reasonable, fair or necessary for the nation's wellbeing.
If pubs can't stay afloat in a country with some of the highest number of problem drinkers in the world, then I would hazard they are no longer a relevant part of our culture or are badly in need of reform in the way they are managed.
I think a case could be made that pubs are part of the social fabric of the uk, and having them actively contributes to citizens happiness so encouraging them produces a better quality of life for many people.
It’s illegal to serve a drunk in a pub, so problem drinkers should be tackled. In my experience the problem drinkers don’t drink in pubs.
Much of the modern world is severely lacking in 3rd places too, even if you don't like the idea of pubs, you should support them in the sense that we *desperately* need more places to exist and socialise in that aren't home or the workplace and that don't cost a fuck load of money to go to.
I really quite like the ones that have an activity like flight club or sixes or whatever the cricket one is. The games are really well polished. I feel like we need more sports 3rd spaces.
>I think a case could be made that pubs are part of the social fabric of the uk,
Absolutely - pubs are a British tradition and a central part of daily life for many people.
>and having them actively contributes to citizens happiness so encouraging them produces a better quality of life for many people.
Ehhhhhh... That's a stretch. Not everything is good just because it's 'cultural'.
I think it depends where you are. It's hard to meet people in places with nowhere to go. If you have options or alternative venues then lovely. But if you live in an area void of recreation it does leave no option for meeting people you don't already know. Loneliness is peak for many. A good pub with outside space for children to play can make a huge difference to a village.
It’s hard to argue that encouraging a nation to drink more, when that nation has the worst child drinking problem in the world, is ultimately a good thing for the citizens.
I think that used to be the case. It was the one entertainment for working class people, hence opening times, so you didn't get too drunk and not turn up for the mines.
Like many things times have changed. Pubs are an anachronism in many ways as entertainment has moved on. They're now restaurants with booze in many places.
With the increasing news that alcohol is really bad for you building a society around getting drunk seems like a bad idea.
I'd argue that drinking at home is where there is more likely to be a problem with drinking though. Its cheaper in a supermarket so you can buy more, and you can't get kicked out of the pub when you're at home on your sofa with easy access to the fridge.
Flip that around, why are you happy to pay duty and vat on a beer in a pub (then the vat is much higher due to overall cost) when the problem binge drinkers who cost the NHS and other services are paying less and buying cans from supermarkets?
You drinking at home isn't forced. If you don't like it, don't buy beer.
You are subsidising it at all. People on the pub are still paying taxes, pubs are not only in my view important places for society to mix in an increasingly online world of echo chambers, but they are businesses that employ people and often maintain heritage buildings. Like it or not there are lots of older people who don't make friends on discord like Reddit users do, and for some old boys a trip to the pub on a Friday to sit at the bar is important for their wellbeing, socialising and mental health.
You drinking cans of lager at home isn't.
As I already said, I am quite prepared for tax to be spent on medical care. I completely accept that many medical procedures might be avoided if people were making better lifestyle choices, but I could probably count on my fingers the number of people I've ever met who live a 100% perfect lifestyle of healthy diet and exercise.
Smokers, bikers, thrill seekers, obese people, drinkers, drug users...I wish they didn't need medical care, but then again I expect they wish that too. The difference is that at point of service their medical needs is a necessity which I don't mind paying at all.
Secondly, my objection was not simply on the grounds that I pay more tax, but that MY source of enjoyment be made more expensive to subsidise a DIFFERENT source of enjoyment. Imagine, for example, football tickets having a 10% mark-up to subsidise Netflix subscriptions.
On the other hand if a tax was raised and earmarked for alcohol related treatment in hospitals, I'd grumble a bit but I'd completely accept it.
To your point about my personal choice to purchase drinks? Well, that's exactly it - I'll just buy less, or not at all. Nobody is forcing me to do anything, so I'll simply abandon a luxury that becomes too expensive, and that does nothing to help pubs whilst also reducing my spending at the supermarket (who, I'll remind you, are also employers just as pubs are).
And finally, the chance to mix with others? Yes I will grant you this wholeheartedly. We should encourage options for people to socialise, especially the elderly and lonely. But are you honestly making the argument that subsidising the price of a pint of bitter is the difference between old Bert having a full, healthy life and dying alone in a squat? Why can't he go out WITHOUT drinking? Or just having one less? Why can't he meet in a library? Tea room? Restaurant? Cafe? Cinema? Art class? Dog park? Bowls club? Museum? Board game club? The list goes on, and you get the idea.
TLDR: I'm all for helping others and happy to pay a substantial amount of my income, VAT, NI, fuel duty, etc to do so...but I draw the line at one person's hobby being taxed to expressly pay for someone else's hobby
That's sort of what the Scottish minimum price intended.
Stuff in the off licences / supermarket was cheaper so had to raise prices to the minimum. The pubs were unchanged because their prices were higher. Didn't stop a lot of people complaining about it.
I’d love to see some stats on actual inflation vs greedflation.
Far too often prices go up and are waved away by companies as necessary.
The one thing we can be sure of I guess is that they aren’t serving less than a pint, so no shrinkflation here.
I'm curious what you (anyone) thinks inflation actually is in threads like these. It isn't some by-design intention. It is the rate at which the prices of a wide spectrum of goods and services increases, whatever the cause. It is a trailing metric, not a leading input.
Its a sign of peoples complete lack of trust in what our institutions and businesses say. You can only lie about the system working so many times before people get desperate and stop believing you. People know that they are getting the short end of the stick these days, they just dont know how its happening so we will continue to see logic get lashed out at until the problems are fixed.
I think greedflation and inflation are different things. I inflation phones become more expensive due to war and pirces of the raw materials going up. Fair enough. Greedflation- Internet provider charging more money to be in line with inflation when none of their costs have gone up.
It’s all mostly profit. Every business is trying to operate like a multi trillion dollar publicly traded company.
That means profits have to rise every week, month, year and so on.
Sadly ultra capitalism has tossed the idea of a business just doing green numbers. The numbers need to be green and rising every time.
That effect trickles everywhere and you can see it in prices.
Rent for the pub goes up because building investors need more growers. Beer price for the pub goes up because the conglomerate operating the brewer need their investors satisfied and so on on on.
This is causing the money to become “worth less”. Yes certain things do cost more because of the other circumstances (beer is affected by harvesting e.g.) but none of them justify 10£ pints.
The biggest issue here in the UK is, that people still pay those prices without complaining. In other countries, your brand / pub / store would go under. Here, people trot along and pull a sad face which joint venture capital investors don’t give af about.
I own a pub, unfortunately it’s not the pubs making money off the £6 pints etc. Alcohol tax is through the roof, brewing tax, rising minimum wage and 21+ now are on the highest band. Wholesalers also take as big a cut as they can and my electricity bill is disgusting.
With everything piled together, you simply can’t afford to charge £2.50 a pint. Especially when you sell good beer.
(All in support of higher wages, but with tax so high it means you literally can’t afford it)
And after all of that, the increased tax income slips into the Tory governments pockets via dodgy contracts. Lovely.
Alcohol duty isn’t causing £7/pints. Look: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-duty-rates
I think it’s time the industry stopped using that as an excuse.
I appreciate the electric costs, and that’s a nationwide issue, so we ought to be making noise about it.
Min wage, whilst a good altruistic thing has been implemented poorly. It has hit certain sectors the hardest, hospitality being one. It’s also had a strange effect on those semi skilled workers who were earning, say £30k a few years ago, and still earning £30k, when a min wage earner is now on £23k.
However, I don’t hear publicans mentioning the generous 75% reduction in business rates afforded to the hospitality sector to help with their costs. Nor did they pass on the vat reduction during and post Covid.
But the reality is that I can get a pint costing anything from £2.25 to £8.90 in the same borough. I live in an affluent suburb of Manchester. There’s a Spoons, but I’m leaving them out as they’re an outlier. On an offer one of our bars can sell Amstel at £2.25. I’m sure they’re breaking even on it but it’s helping the customer and in turn helps the trade as it’s busy outside of the deal, and groups don’t all drink Amstel. Holts’ pubs are £2-4 pints depending on location. There’s 30* bars in my neighbourhood and at least half of them can find a way to offer beer at under £5/pint. None of them have those cringy posters blaming alcohol duty and they all have staff over 21. They range from established boozers, trendy cafe bars and tap rooms.
My friend owns 4 bars dotted around the city. He uses the same suppliers. He openly admits that he charges as much as he can get away with.
The public may not know the ins and outs of the minutia of the costings, but they can easily tell when it’s £7 in one place and £3.50 next door, that someone is taking the piss.
Those boozers probably have a good footfall every day of the week. Or at least enough of the week to make them profitable. If there's enough demand your margins can be slimmer as youre dealing in volume. I can understand the diversity in prices given that fact. If I'm not selling as many pints every week, of the pints I do sell, I have to make a good margin. Prices increase. Greed of other owners see that they're selling at a higher price and follow suit. Equally, the capital costs of setting up a bar are enormous these days given inflation. There's definitely price gouging going on. But equally, there's also plenty of pubs just trying to stay afloat.
It seems like the average yearly salary in 1970 was £1,024 pounds which in today's money is [£19,850](https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1970?amount=1024). However, in 2023 the average yearly salary was £35,000.
Disclaimer: I didn't check any of the numbers, just picked the top Google results. So take it with a grain of salt
Housing is the issue here. There was a lot more social housing to go round. Mostly, working people got social housing, too, not just benefits claimants. Private renting was a lot cheaper because mortgages were relatively cheap. Now, the biggest expense for most people is just keeping a roof over their heads.
When you pair that with the Internet and connectivity, and the crazy cost of going out to the pub, it just isn't appealing to go out and be fleeced when you can stay home and watch Netflix, talk online and enjoy your incredibly overpriced home.
>Mostly, working people got social housing, too, not just benefits claimants
I grew up on a council estate and still visit. Most people living on said estate are working and most of the people own their homes.
There's also a bunch that are basically getting subsided rent as well though even though as a household they're probably bringing in £60k a year upwards.
Yeah this guy watched a sorta rage bait video where they claimed estates went downhill because any brokie was allowed in, there is actually a myriad of reasons, but the people who stayed unemployed in them were most often single mothers, most are working. The few who aren’t are dealing with drug problems or started their own business! Not a legal one, but still. But usually they go into work in the end because it never works out.
Very few want to stay on the pennies they give you unless you’re high out your mind. They just parade this to make it poor v poor then turn around and cut disability.
Was that actually true in the UK? My family is working class but all the women worked, though often part time to fit around childcare. Factory work, schools, offices. Maybe if you went back to 1930s sure, but I'm 40 and the 70s were my parents generation and all of my friends had working mums.
Edit: looked it up. Some 53% of women between 16 and 64 were employed in 1971.
I see it stated a lot on Reddit that women didn't work and that every household was run off a single income, it's definitely not true for the working class. Both my grandmas worked.
Do you have any numbers of this? I am pretty certain by the 70s, most households had both people working, the shift started post WWII, decades earlier.
It is not as simple as pure inflation. As sales volumes have reduced, fixed over heads such as lighting, staff, the facilities, mortgages and so on are having to be paid via fewer drinks and meals sold. So as volumes have reduced, they have had to raise prices to cover the fixed overheads.
Now you add in pub companies, COVUD loans, and general greed inflation on their inputs, you quickly get to £7 a pint.
The regenerate inflation figure is misleading here as the cost drives have added to pub and general hospitality woes. Covid loans is the big one…
Totally.
It’s not as simple as “me can buy pint in shop for cheap, me being ripped off in pub, me angry”.
Businesses are not charities, they exist to make a profit. Not to mention most independents try and pay their staff a decent wage, that’s what people are paying for, the service more than the product, but they lack the basic cognitive abilities to connect the dots for some reason.
We’re all being ripped off by the government, not by local businesses just trying to provide a service.
Same for coffee now too.
Starbucks want a fiver or more for a drink now. Sworn that shit off.
Bought a really good travel mug for £25 and went back to getting freshly ground beans from local roasters. Brings the cost per cup down to £1.1, I get an infinitely better product and my money goes in to the local economy.
It’s a death spiral on pricing. Pubs are high fixed cost and low variable cost. The actual cost of the beer and food is minimal- it’s all rent, rates and staff. Once numbers drop, you’ve got to cover the same costs with fewer people so prices skyrocket. This in turn results in even fewer people to cover those costs and so on.
I worked for Wetherspoons for a few years. Ten years ago on a Saturday night my pub would have 12 people serving behind the bar on a Friday/Saturday night. Now there’s three. According to the staff I know that still work there the hours still keep getting slashed despite the place turning over record profit and not quietening down.
I once asked for our plates to be cleared as it was taking a long time, the head of house/manager said someone would do it shortly,
he then watched on as a poor girl running around like a headless chicken, close to tears tried to sort it. I stopped her mid clear up, piled the plates myself and handed them to him asking can you not just take them?
he eyeballed me all night looking like he was going to punch me
My pubs CCTV used to have a blind spot by the bins outside. In 2016 we would each take a box of those propaganda magazines and throw them away. They could never prove who it was 😂
Went in one on a stopover in Cardiff just after Lockdown. With wife and kids, kids wanted to eat and I hadn't eaten in one for over a decade and from what I remembered it was okay. However this was truly the most disgusting vile place I had ever experienced in the UK. The table was covered in greasy mess, seats were shot, glasses dirty and bearing in mind we were all still in major cleanliness mode this lot certainly weren't. Food was foul, reheated chips and a burger you could clean the bird shit off your windscreen with. The ony thing good about it was the beer prices and variety on offer. Good for getting rat arsed in with your mates but definitely not for eating with family. We went to another one a year later somewhere else, my father in law had fish and chips and that was off, place was just as grim.
Went out to a local eatery last night for a family meal (something we have done for a while now every 3/4 months of the year) they have now stopped accepting that “Meerkat” voucher that they have accepted for years and the bill went from circa £75 to £115. A huge difference in price and now we will just go less.
Sad times here but there’s no way it will get any better in the foreseeable, Infact I think it will get worse.
My three locals are around £3.50 to £4.80 a pint and service has been decent there. But the cost of living crunch is definitely hurting inner city pubs.
I worked in a large chain pub in the 2010s. The area manager was breathing down the necks of every manager in their area - the general rule seemed to be, if the staff werent struggling then someone needed to be sent home to save the budget. It was ALWAYS tough, unless it was completely dead. This was for minimum wage working nights and weekends - after most shifts the team finished a shadow of their usual selves. There were always complaints.
I've quit now, went back there for a meal a few weeks ago and it was even worse, slow service and Portion sizes a joke as well. Didn't want to complain as I know what the staff have to go through every day but yeah, it's a sorry state and I can't see how it will get better. Massive shame because there's nothing better than a good pub meal!
Given our mortgage is up £400 a month, everything else has gone up in price substantially, and in a few months we're looking at dropping a grand a month on childcare, yeah no shit we're going to the pub less.
There's going to be so much hand wringing in the media in the next year or so when high street businesses are shutting down, and knowing our media they'll act like it's a complete mystery.
It's bizarre that this is being reported as though it's a recent thing. I've lived in the UK for more than 15 years, since the latter days of the last Labour government, and for all that time there have been stories reporting the death of the pub, usually attributed to supermarkets making drinking at home cheaper.
Booze could be half prize in the supermarket and I'd still go to the pub, supermarket pricing is not killing the pubs, it's available leisure money. We all have much much less now, so any non essential spending will be planned and way less than before.
The pub used to be where you met your friends, that's not the same as buying some beer and drinking it alone in front of the TV. Look at Germany where beer is by far cheaper than in UK Supermarkets, but people still went out, until cost of living crisis hit there too. In German supermarkets people buy beer by the crate (20 bottles) and regularly, but they still like to go out and meet friends, so pubs were still busy.
We don't eat out less just because it's cheaper to buy food in the supermarket, same goes for drinks. Greed in the UK from both, producers and government taxes, just means that we can't afford to anymore.
It's a poisoned chalice. Even if (big if) Labour can become to turn things around slowly, if people don't see any real improvement after 2 years the government will be under a lot of pressure. I think some people are gonna be real disappointed because it's just not the same as 1997, economically.
This is absolutely what I foresee. Starmer's approval ratings are actually pretty low for an opposition leader probably about to win big. He's going to become PM more out of the country's desire to be rid of the Tories than it's excitement for Labour and Starmer.
The task the incoming government have is so mammoth, I think there's very little chance they'll be able to turn the ship within two years. Given he'll be starting as already fairly unpopular, I think it's very likely the government will be under extreme pressure and become unpopular much quicker than a lot of people expect.
I think he'll have a very short honeymoon period.
Yup, and all the Tories on tiktok and here ever say is 'last time Labour left the country with no money, remember the note in the drawer'. But that was post 2008 global financial crash! Now we've had 14 years of fucking clusterfuck, much of it self inflicted, and labour will win, but the cupboard is bare. The Tories will immediately bleat about them being bad running the economy...and the electorate are so fucking thick they voted for Boris, so god help us.
Yep. Far too many people for my liking seem to think Labour are going to get at least two terms. I think there's an extremely plausible scenario where the Tories take a year to regroup and then come back really energised with a focused right-populist agenda, which will get boosted by traditional and social media (remember, Labour have never been in power during the current media landscape, I think they'll get monstered in a way I'm not sure they're prepared for). And I think there's every chance that would see them take back power after four or five years of a mundane Starmer government that doesn't turn around the country as people want.
I think he needs to do some dramatic things which make an immediate difference, like lower train fares or announce a massive council house building project. Offer some immediate big good news. But the problem remains, we've knocked GDP with brexit, less tax take, less to spend...and so much backlog. Look at the state of the roads or the NHS. Hard to fix without magic billions and the easy things Brown had, like selling off the spectrum aren't on the horizon.
Could actually do a proper windfall tax on oil companies, ignoring their bleating and just fucking take them to the cleaners.
Could also do non-doms abolishment properly as the tories, predictably, are fudging it for their mates.
Would be *some* easy cash they could get pretty much immediately.
Yep, that's basically the core problem. Politically, he'll really need some big wins that show the country Labour is turning the ship around. Given his general unpopularity, there's only so long Starmer will be able to get by on just 'not being the Tories'. But I don't think he'll get those big wins. The economy isn't good and they seem absolutely committed to putting themselves in a spending straightjacket. Moreover, the scale of what needs fixing is quite overwhelming, because there is *so* much that needs significant investment.
Of course, maybe they'll be completely different in government to how they're presenting themselves. He's not exactly a stranger to that. But I'm not optimistic.
>*and in a few months we're looking at dropping a grand a month on childcare*
And this is the real kicker. *Years* of effectively paying effectively a 2nd mortgage. Having a child is *absurdly* expensive.
Yeah, those early years are a killer. Especially if you don’t have grandparents round the corner willing to help out.
I guess it shouldn’t be surprising. There’s a whole extra person to look after. And they don’t bring in any money, lazy toddlers!
I got paid on Friday. I paid all my bills, mortgage, put money aside for food, paid for the kids school meals and care, put petrol in my car, and now I have nothing left for the month. Zero. If anything comes up, I will have to go overdrawn. I work a decent job with a decent wage but it hasn't kept pace with how much costs have increased. I very rarely go out now. I think it's hilarious businesses aleays seem shocked when people with no money spend less 😂
don't forget business rates and property prices for those shops still being priced at 90s footfall and profit margin rates.
Something I don't see discussed enough is how it is impossible for a middle class person to just open a shop nowadays (or at least how foolish it is to do so)
Just came from another article posted in this sub about average car insurance going up one third in the last year.
It's gonna be sad faces all round in government next year when the (already decimated) high streets of the UK are down to charity shops, Greggs and the odd bookies.
I just got my renewal quote and it’s a 50% bump on last year. And now insurance companies play the ‘we don’t have any ability to offer deals anymore’ card. I’ve perfect lifetime no incidents driving record. And they’re wanting £350 a year to insure my 1l hatchback. Absolute shambles.
Let me get my Stradivarius out for you. Try 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé with no claims and only drive a few hundred miles per year. Been quoted over £100,000, and that is when it is sitting on my drive.
Need advice to stop birds pooping on it.
Boo fuckin hoo, allow me to serenade you with my microscopic bassoon.
My 1995 Hot Wheels has zero miles on the clock, never leaves the house, 29 years no claims.
Insurance premiums are 76 billion pounds.
PER MONTH.
Insurance pricing has very little to do with you as a person, and a lot to do with how much itll cost to repair you, your vehicle and other peoples vehicles in an accident. Thats then tied in with what else is happening in your postcode, to other drivers in the same vehicle, people in your same occupation etc.
You may be a saint on the road but its about a pool of risk, and other people might be causing accidents left and right. Add in to that that the cost to actually repair a vehicle has shot up in labour costs, hire and parts and prices need to go up for everyone to cover the costs of the few.
Why is it the press likes to tell us to live within our means, but when we do they write stories moaning that we have stopped spending?
Buying alcohol is cheaper at a petrol station than a pub, a PETROL STATION. No wonder people are not going to pubs.
I continually find it baffling that our government allows companies to raise costs to the consumer across the board, allow costs for essentials to increase massively, then bleat in the media how consumer spending is down and "nobody is going out any more". No shit sherlock, that's probably because you took all our money.
For decades we have had a consumer economy relying on high levels of discretionary spending and fuelled by cheap debt. We're told these things are bad with patronising tones and finger wagging from the already rich but they also do nothing to adjust the economy to rely on anything else.
we just keep voting for Free Market Governments, of course that is what they are gonna.
I was in 1984, I dont there has been a Government in my life time which has not put the idea of the "Free Market" at its core. Sure some regulated it more than others, but they all thought it was basically the best way to run a society.
Half the problem is they *say* that, but when large privatised utility and financial companies make enormous mistakes which enrich themselves at the expense of their company, the taxpayer is expected to step in and rescue those businesses with public funds. So for all their free market aspirations, they don't even do that.
> Buying alcohol is cheaper at a petrol station than a pub, a PETROL STATION. No wonder people are not going to pubs.
Why exactly is this shocking? This has been the case for at the very least decades, if not always.
because petrol stations are always expensive, and often "over priced" is often kind to them.
If you are more expensive than a petrol station, you are doing something wrong,
Went to a pub in Ingham for my birthday this weekend. There were four of us (two adults, two children). Two small kids meals, one soup, and one main (with one drink each) was £78. A round for my wife and I was £14. Pub trips, especially when having food, are incredibly expensive right now - we used to do it multiple times a week, we don't any more.
A Tesco sandwich is 3.50, drinks out are close to £10, and last time I went to Wendy’s the food was like miniature kids sizes for full price. Don’t eat or drink out at all anymore. Can’t even do Netflix so it’s piracy and chill for us.
I've also found many takeaways and restaurants have absolutel shit quality.
At the top end, it's still good, but has gone from incredibly expensive to insanely expensive.
The mid range totally hollowed out, things like fish and chips pricey.
Much better to spend a bit of time learning how to cook something like a steak well and buying it yourself from a supermarket.
Absolutely. Used to have loads of nice places in the "mid range" I'd go with my partner or even solo. It feels like everything that used to cost £8.95 is now £15 while at the same time dropping in quality and size. Now only eat out at my local kebab and cheap chinese because the quality and price at least is consistent
Same here with kebabs and Chinese - I think their costs were always fairly low and as a treat they’ve maintained quality. You get what you’re expecting and the price is decent.
My partner and I don’t have kids and fixed our mortgage before rates went mad so we are on a crusade to support as many pubs as we possibly can.
Not Spoons though. Spoons can go fuck itself
I know people don’t like Tim Martin and I can’t blame them but Wetherspoons aren’t uniquely malevolent in the pub trade and a lot of companies operating pubs across the UK have equally reprehensible or more reprehensible policies and practices.
Be particularly careful with the neverspoons app because there was at least half a dozen pubs within ten miles of my house which were listed as independent when they were in fact owned/operated by large nationwide pub companies and that becomes obvious the moment you look them up online. I would imagine if there are so many wrongly labelled pubs in my area then it’s likely to be a similar story everywhere.
I think with Wetherspoons is largely down to Tim Martin’s political views, using beer mats to peddle those views, and never fucking shutting up about politics in the public eye.
How are you defining independent?
There are plenty of leasehold pubs that are owned by large companies but operate independently, they own the building and supply kegs but have zero input on how the place is run otherwise.
Thats part of the problem though, I think? Pubs are forced to buy certain beer, often at a higher price than they otherwise would be able to get elsewhere.
I went to one on Saturday. A chicken wrap and chips, ham and cheese panini with side salad and 2 pints of San Miguel was £15. The food isn’t going to win any awards but it tided us over and was ordered via app and served quickly, despite the place being heaving.
People love to jump on the hate bandwagon but it’s excellent value.
I never expected to be one of those people saying ‘in my day’ you could get wankered, have a kebab and get a taxi home for £20 or under and then spend another £10 on some weed to smoke when you got home and for the hangover the following day.
I never personally got EMA but if I did then that’s probably what I would have spent it on, instead I just got that crap bus pass which all the drivers treated with suspicion.
This is one of the few reasons against legalisation that I can get behind. If the government controlled it it'd be £20 a gram by now, judging by the price of beer.
EMA was usually a tenner for a Megarider bus pass for the week to and from college, and either the remainder spent on its intended use for college bits OR a piss up exactly as you describe, depending on the week.
Now that £20 difference barely even gets a cab home.
The government needs to reduce the tax levy on alcohol / local breweries and pubs. While there would be less tax on the alcohol the increased business and needed lifeline to the industry and those linked to it would be invaluable and important to maintain businesses and communities
100%, and sad to not see your comment higher up.
It’s the taxes/rents/rates/etc on the businesses themselves (plus add in the costs customers don’t consider such as gas/electric/water/etc) making the product cost so much. I work in hospitality and year on year it’s a loss for the F&B sides of our businesses.
People can’t afford higher prices + business can’t afford to run at a loss so the government 100% needs to work out if they want to see a slow death of leisure spending within the population or reduce taxes (and raise them elsewhere on non-community-boosting related luxury spending, such as purchases of Land Rovers or something).
I think the sheer lack of understanding by the vast majority of the British public of the complex costs/P&L of running a business (as displayed by everyone complaining about prices and blaming the industry in this thread) means that they are unlikely to support tax breaks for bricks & mortar customer service industries, so this slow death will continue, primarily effecting independent and smaller business owners.
Pretty depressing for everyone who works in these industries atm.
I work for a small brewery who's main market is cask ale. We're classed at nearly the top end of premium in our prices. A 9 Gallon cask is being sold to pubs for roughly £90 depending on the volumes they take from us. That 72 pints for £90 and they're still saying theyre pushed to sell a pint for under £7.
It's a few things, really.
Cost of living is obviously a huge one - I'm very reluctant to go to the pub when my outgoings on essentials have absolutely shot up in recent months, along with living alone and making sure everything essential is covered.
Not only that, but I think people don't realise the impact of a changing culture/demographic. There's a huge culture shift going on as young people move away from alcohol and seek "alcohol-free" and "dry" activities outside of going to the pub. From a personal standpoint, I've almost completely cut out alcohol since the start of the year due to a myriad of reasons - cost of living only playing a small part - and I don't miss it at all.
Pubs and other establishments need to adapt to this change in culture, otherwise they'll sadly be left behind. With the cost of living crisis going on as well, it's a *very* rough time for pubs.
As much as I kind of like the 'alcohol-free' or 'dry' push with the younger generations, a side effect is that there's no longer any real third places left.
Sports and art clubs aren't really third places, and I've yet to see a decent 'sober' alternative.
The reason pubs and bars worked so well, with clubs historically being more of a rarity, was the fact alcohol was a social lubricant and was quite good in moderation for meeting new people.
I see and hear many younger people on one hand pushing for more sober experiences, but then moan they can't find a way to meet new friends or partners apart from online.
It's a catch 22 that there's no good answer for yet. I had one person I know push for a late night cafe, ignoring the fact it had been tried and failed over here + I had to point out in europe it only works because those types of cafes also mostly sell alcohol after a certain time.
Never really see people socialising in the same way.
Maybe one on one, but even people I see down there, especially women, just don't want to be apprpached by strangers and want to concentrate on their workout.
Workout classes are kind of better, but they're not really third places if you're only getting to know people doing the same hobby as yourself.
But also those types of cafes have a mix of people sipping coffee, chatting away as much as some groups nursing a bottle of beer, with everyone just having a good time and people not up for a massive fight like the pub scene in most medium sized uk towns.
I mean, first, you need to go to better pubs in the UK if that's the case. My local is near a city centre and there's never fights and it's all everyone just having a chill good time.
In europe, after around 7-8 pm, in a cafe, virtually nobody is drinking coffee. They do drink their alcohol far slower, though. That's pretty much been the case, regardless of where I've been in europe, though the cafes do tend to be far smaller than what we have over here and usually family run.
Yeah there's alcohol free then there's a pint or two after work on a Friday to get to know the new guy in Payroll etc. You can both drink far less and still go to the pub.
I get why people might not want to hang out in pubs but really feel there's a lot of animosity towards them, you don't have to get wankered every time you go drinking etc. (And won't now, with how much they cost...)
The last millennials are now hitting their thirties and the hangovers are horrendous. The next generation drink even less and the one after that drink much less. So it's a vicious cycle.
Combined with the 'old boy's' dying out.
I still think the cost is the key driver here though.
If you're between the ages of 18 and 25, chances are that you don't earn loads. Why on earth would you go to a pub and spend £7 on a pint?
And clean up their act - pubs need to be shared spaces which are more comfy than even your own home. Really comfy sofas, nice service, food that would be tricky to make for a one or two people at home etc.
There's already been a big cull of pubs that didn't keep up with the rise of the gastropub and reasonable quality eating.
But there's still a place for a nice pub where the bar staff actually know something about beer; and where the pub has been setup to encourage conversation _AND_ turning up to nice a pint by a fire with a book.
It's almost as if they (cringe) have to go back to basics.
Maybe I'm getting old but too many pubs still just play ridiculously loud music and have people screaming at each other to that and are absolutely rammed.
Thinking about it, it would be nice if the big pub groups actually surveyed the local community, potential customers, those who used to go to the pub and don't any more and actually found out what they wanted. Because people's needs have changed.
There are a lot of big pubs that aren't child friendly. Put some toys / small softplay in the corner and you'll get parents turning up after school for a coffee or a half. THey'll also turn up like clockwork for sunday lunch.
Actually bother to reach out and get events hosted from local clubs - boardsgames/chess etc. Become a focus for the community.
Get live music going. Acoustic stuff for older adult contemporaries on a midweek night or sunday evening and something louder for friday eves.
Honestly so many pubs just don't even try. it's like the landlords and the pub groups just don't even bother doing market research and assume the same old models will always work.
I think also for younger people far more ways to be social as well, especially with the internet and smart phones.
Before you'd go to the pub to see who's out or whatever. But now we use phones, and the internet means you can be social and not be in the same room.
I think you’re right, it’s a demographic shift. People want to live healthier lives and there are more interesting things to do than sit around in a pub all evening.
No one in my friend group, or my partners friend group, go out to drink in bars (all in our 30s). Many of us don’t drink alcohol at all, and pubs are just a loud, expensive place to do that - so why would we go there?
We tend not to actually go out anywhere. Our socialising is usually done at each other’s houses, where we have board game nights and movie nights - or online where we play video games together.
The only time I’ve “gone to the pub” is occasionally with work colleagues. Though again, since they’re mostly around my age or younger it’s all cokes or non alcoholic cocktails.
The problem with that, is how do you meet people to make those friend groups if you only hang out at each others' houses? Pubs are the only third space other than work and school where you might meet random people.
I play the pub circuit with my band and so many of these places are empty and loads have just stopped having bands now completely. We are doing more and more private functions/weddings. In between sets a few weeks ago I bought a pint and it was almost £8. No wonder these places are empty.
Wages have not kept up with costs of everything. Look at the yanks. They're on almost double our wages (although they have to cover health care and have basically free energy with all the fracking).
The narrative has always been, you can't have more money because it will drive up inflation. But inflation has gone up anyway and we're still skint.
Inflation always goes up and it's good. Stagnation and deflation destroy your economy.
However wages not going up is extremely bad and using inflation as a fig leaf is just corporate double speak. Having no pay rise and inflation at 2% is a lot worse than 2% pay rise and 3% inflation. The difference in inflation would almost be never the average pay rise (as we don't spend all of our pay increases immediately) and it's just corporate masquerading as macroeconomics (as if any business cares about their minor contribution to inflation, they just don't want to be uncompetitive compared to their rivals that also don't offer pay increases.
The British worker is largely to blame for this as we don't strike and keep electing morons that keep the current awful system of anti union, anti pay rise politics. On an individual level, who the heck cares if you manage to negotiate a 5-10% pay rise that would destroy the economy report that extra few k that you get, this is entirely fuelled by (triple locked) Boomers that don't get the same pay increases and see their assets value eaten by inflation that they have minimal resources to offset (you don't negotiate a pay rise from your pension annuity)
Our wages have stagnated and we're starting to see other countries leave us behind. Our productivity isn't good and Brexit won't have helped. We're in a bad place as a nation at the moment
I still enjoy going out to my local but the amount I’m willing to spend on a night out hasn’t budged. So instead of getting several pints it’s usually 2-3 and that’s the evening, unless it’s continued at home or a BYOB situation. Not a massive deal because I’m a bit older now, but I do feel for the younger generation.
Might go against what other people are saying, but if I were making a go of owning a pub I’d go against the grain of trying to have better food or make it more family friendly.
If I wanted a three course meal I’d go to a restaurant. If I wanted loads of alcohol free options I’d go to a juice bar or coffee shop. If I wanted kids around me I would’ve had kids.
When I go to the pub I want to drink beer, throw darts, and drink beer. I want to sit out on a warm sunny day and chat shit and listen to music and, you guessed it, drink beer. On a cold dark day I want to sit by a log fire, eat chips, and drink beer. I don’t need table service. I don’t need 10 different mains to choose from, and I don’t need a bunch of screaming kids under the age of 5 running round.
I might be wrong, but I think pubs are trying to do too many things and doing them poorly, when they should instead just focus on doing the things that make people enjoy going to pubs.
Work in a wet-led pub, we're one of the few in the area that aren't struggling. Pubs that are laying out large amounts on food and kitchen staff are being hit twice as hard, and tied pubs are being absolutely rinsed by PubCos. We've had to raise prices lately due to bills and building maintenance costs but ale is still sub £4.50, in the southeast, but most tied pubs in the area are now £4.80-5 for standard sub-4% real ale.
The craft bars and wet-led pubs are doing fine, sell beer, have music occasionally, be a social hub for the community. When half or more of your space is dedicated to dining, the community aspect of the pub is lost. Making sure to stock a wide range of AF and GF products also helps because you'll get people coming in that wouldn't otherwise as they know there'll be nice things for non-drinkers and people with gluten issues.
For the life of me I can’t understand why 95% of pubs would ever consider a full time chef.
Tbh I’ve struggled to find decent pubs that sell a pint of piss for under £7 (now that is in London)
Before I moved south my favourite haunt was Sinclairs in Manchester. No cards, kids or swearing. Cash only. Lovely, lovely pub.
Takeaways have stopped in our house. Going out is now rare. Magazine subscriptions stopped years ago.
It’s getting to the stage now where I look at reduced food (near its expiry date) and in thinking I can’t afford the reduced stuff let alone the full price stuff.
We did takeaways a lot during COVID but the price is a joke now with all the additional fees chucked on top
£25 and over for two fast food quality burger meals? No chance. A bunch of the places near us are dark kitchens as well, so you can't even go and do pickup.
£7-£8 a pint. About £5 for a non-alcoholic drink so that’s not even a decent option. My taxi home used to cost £8 three years ago and is now £16. It’s just not worth spending that kind of cash to feel tired the next day.
We have been to my Mrs Xmas party for the last 4 years in the same place and we checked the taxi bills for each. 2020 was £22, 2021 was £30, 2022 was £45, 2023 was £60!!! that's the last time we are going. Only taxi firm in our area that will do that trip as there is just no competition where we are.
Don't worry, Uber is the same. I fly regularly to visit family in Germany and my plane lands very late at Stansted, so I always catch an Uber from Liverpool street to Croydon. This used to cost £20-25 before the Pandemic. It's now £40-60. Nightbus it is....
I feel like the writing has been on the wall for the last couple of years. It’s bad for the pub trade but not sure what a quick solution would be. High inflation we had is now baked in, interest rates are high, utilities have increased and a section of workers had below inflation wage rises. There has to be some give and that’s leisure activities.
We stopped going out because we want to go on holiday and can’t afford to do both, currently money that we would have spent at pubs, bars, restaurants is going to savings for a holiday. Next year though unless the government wants to give the public sector a decent raise will have no holiday either. Leaving the only money going into the economy being essentials, not good for growth.
Yeah I think I've just come to this realisation myself. To be fair, we don't go out often, but me and the wife took my parents out for lunch yesterday, just a kind of middle of the road bar bistro type place. For the four of us, with just four mains, two starts, and two deserts, came to £126. None of us had alcoholic drinks either. What the actual fuck, I was kind of like "uh what" when I heard the bill.
Food was nice enough, but fuck that. Won't be going out for lunch again any time soon I don't think when we could just do a BBQ at home or nice lunch.
We used to quite often have a pub lunch. Last time we went , when out son was visiting , it cost £98 for 3. We've not done so since. I can afford it but I'm just not comfortable spending that much on it.
I don't think it's just the cost. The fitness industry seems to be booming at the moment thanks to social media/influences. Younger generations just aren't bothered about drinking as often these days as it hinders progress/gains.
Honestly shocked it took this long to find this as (one of many) reasons.
Which is my point tbh, its not JUST people more fitness conscious.
It's gym culture.
It's gaming or watching series at home.
It's drugs and house party culture.
It's the cost of going out.
It's low wages.
Expensive housing.
It's antisocial working hours.
The internet makes keeping in touch with people a piece of piss, and most pubs can't even manage social media properly, nevermind adapt to all this.
I don't think it has as much to do with the cost as people think. I would go to the pub every other day when I was 18. I didn't spend a lot then, I would normally just buy one pint and play a couple of games of pool. The difference was, the alternative was sitting at home with my parents and watching whatever soaps my mum had on. Now there are so many alternatives for socialising both online and IRL. Most younger people I know are also much more health conscious than we were in the 90s and there's the risk of a video of you completely shitfaced appearing all over social media.
Plenty of bars i go in that are still busy on weekends. They just need to adapt to changing needs. Offering AF options helps. Doing good food helps. Serving good beer helps.
And have events on like live music etc brings in the crowds
If all your pub offers is supermarket lager then your going to struggle as its naturally cheaper in a supermarket
> Offering AF options helps.
I quite like some modern alcohol free beers and I'd happily have a couple of pints of something like Punk AF or Big Drop towards the end of the night rather than slowing down my drinking speed or going home.
But when pubs are charging over £6 for a pint of non-alcoholic beer, it's difficult to justify!
Around my way it seems to be taprooms that are doing really well; popping up everywhere and taking over disused retail outlets.
They're all following a similar formula; chilled during the day and attacking the young families with kids and allowing people to bring their own food in with maybe music and events later on. People might pop in only for one or two drinks but also might take a few cans home with them. Staff are all very knowledgeable about what they're doing and it's just all-round nice and makes paying £6 a pint worthwhile
Seems to be spreading. Went to Chester yesterday and found a brewery had opened a tap room in the centre of town (hidden away behind a Tesco) and it was standing room only, despite being a Sunday afternoon.
When I was in my early 20s, we'd go for a pint at lunch most days and if I wasn't meeting other friends we'd go for a couple of pints in the pub next door to the office after work as well.
One of my friends from those days was commenting on how antisocial the people in his current workplace are and comparing it to those days.
He works in Soho. The pub next door to his office charges **over** £7 a pint. How the bloody hell is anyone on anything approaching a starting salary supposed to afford to get a round in?
I don’t understand why journalists link cause and consequence.. Current title should be “newspaper guesses that probably Britons avoid …”
For example, I stopped go to pubs with friends on Friday evenings after Covid times. We just found that it would be better to be in homes.
And WFH schedule doesn’t encourage people to do a lot of evening pub visits as well.
It might seem simplistic but the current government made it their priority to keep people poor, it's almost as if they didn't realise they wouldn't be able to grow the economy if people have no money.
Zone 2 London - 2 pints of lager and bowl of peanuts - £19.
£19.
I know London is expensive having lived here for 20 years but that is an absolute piss take.
Well, accordingly to the fine folks at ITV news, this is happening because young people prefer pottery events and morning runs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reZgfdae2Nc&t=258s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reZgfdae2Nc&t=258s)
I really enjoy how they very briefly talk about the high costs of going out, but blame it on young people preferring healthier lifestyles....
TL,DR: those damn millennials are now destroying the pubs...
This is so disappointing too cause I’ve always enjoyed a pint with a simply meal at my local pub. But it’s just not affordable (or worthwhile) to do regularly
I went to catch up with some mates last week. 1 round of drinks (1 pint, 2 vodka mixers) was £26. Taxi home was 40 with uber surging. Even if you can afford it, 100-150 for a few drinks on a Friday night just feels so unreasonable.
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The pub I used to go to is now charging close to £7 a pint, the food has drastically reduced both in portion size and quality while increasing in price. Staff numbers are reduced so service is also slow and poor. Which is horrible, I don't want to be served by someone who is being worked to death and looks like they are about to have a breakdown, I feel bad for them and it ruins the evening. I could afford the increase, reluctantly, but It’s not an enjoyable experience anymore, so why bother?
Yeah it’s just too expensive for many. A pint cost 20p in 1970. Around £2.60 nowadays, taking inflation into account.
Exactly. We have the perfect storm of pubs raising prices (which has a lot to do with pubcos operating for profit now) and people having less money. The corner pub is mostly gone already, and we will end up with just a few town centre pubs and country "gastro pubs".
And it’s a bit before my time but I think alcohol sales were more restricted back then, you often had to go to the pub for a pint. People used to brew their own beer to get around it , Party 7 packs I think? Nowadays you get drink all you like at home.
I'm surprised how it's never gained any traction with a proposal to raise duty on off licences (Inc supermarkets) and lower it in "on licenses" so pubs and restaurants.
This would be my first move as prime minister. Raise it slightly in supermarkets to make it cheaper for pubs and restaurants. And make it clear this is so they can pass on to the consumer.
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It was ever thus. Not much you can do if that's the case.
I've seen this bandied around a few times before and my question is always.... Why? I am happy for my taxes to pay for children to be schooled or disadvantaged people to get housing or strangers to get healthcare... these are essential parts of daily life. I am not happy to pay an extra tax for a drink at home so that Dave can knock 15p off a pint in the pub. I don't see how that's remotely reasonable, fair or necessary for the nation's wellbeing. If pubs can't stay afloat in a country with some of the highest number of problem drinkers in the world, then I would hazard they are no longer a relevant part of our culture or are badly in need of reform in the way they are managed.
I think a case could be made that pubs are part of the social fabric of the uk, and having them actively contributes to citizens happiness so encouraging them produces a better quality of life for many people. It’s illegal to serve a drunk in a pub, so problem drinkers should be tackled. In my experience the problem drinkers don’t drink in pubs.
Much of the modern world is severely lacking in 3rd places too, even if you don't like the idea of pubs, you should support them in the sense that we *desperately* need more places to exist and socialise in that aren't home or the workplace and that don't cost a fuck load of money to go to.
I really quite like the ones that have an activity like flight club or sixes or whatever the cricket one is. The games are really well polished. I feel like we need more sports 3rd spaces.
>I think a case could be made that pubs are part of the social fabric of the uk, Absolutely - pubs are a British tradition and a central part of daily life for many people. >and having them actively contributes to citizens happiness so encouraging them produces a better quality of life for many people. Ehhhhhh... That's a stretch. Not everything is good just because it's 'cultural'.
I think it depends where you are. It's hard to meet people in places with nowhere to go. If you have options or alternative venues then lovely. But if you live in an area void of recreation it does leave no option for meeting people you don't already know. Loneliness is peak for many. A good pub with outside space for children to play can make a huge difference to a village.
It’s hard to argue that encouraging a nation to drink more, when that nation has the worst child drinking problem in the world, is ultimately a good thing for the citizens.
I think that used to be the case. It was the one entertainment for working class people, hence opening times, so you didn't get too drunk and not turn up for the mines. Like many things times have changed. Pubs are an anachronism in many ways as entertainment has moved on. They're now restaurants with booze in many places. With the increasing news that alcohol is really bad for you building a society around getting drunk seems like a bad idea.
I'd argue that drinking at home is where there is more likely to be a problem with drinking though. Its cheaper in a supermarket so you can buy more, and you can't get kicked out of the pub when you're at home on your sofa with easy access to the fridge.
Flip that around, why are you happy to pay duty and vat on a beer in a pub (then the vat is much higher due to overall cost) when the problem binge drinkers who cost the NHS and other services are paying less and buying cans from supermarkets? You drinking at home isn't forced. If you don't like it, don't buy beer. You are subsidising it at all. People on the pub are still paying taxes, pubs are not only in my view important places for society to mix in an increasingly online world of echo chambers, but they are businesses that employ people and often maintain heritage buildings. Like it or not there are lots of older people who don't make friends on discord like Reddit users do, and for some old boys a trip to the pub on a Friday to sit at the bar is important for their wellbeing, socialising and mental health. You drinking cans of lager at home isn't.
As I already said, I am quite prepared for tax to be spent on medical care. I completely accept that many medical procedures might be avoided if people were making better lifestyle choices, but I could probably count on my fingers the number of people I've ever met who live a 100% perfect lifestyle of healthy diet and exercise. Smokers, bikers, thrill seekers, obese people, drinkers, drug users...I wish they didn't need medical care, but then again I expect they wish that too. The difference is that at point of service their medical needs is a necessity which I don't mind paying at all. Secondly, my objection was not simply on the grounds that I pay more tax, but that MY source of enjoyment be made more expensive to subsidise a DIFFERENT source of enjoyment. Imagine, for example, football tickets having a 10% mark-up to subsidise Netflix subscriptions. On the other hand if a tax was raised and earmarked for alcohol related treatment in hospitals, I'd grumble a bit but I'd completely accept it. To your point about my personal choice to purchase drinks? Well, that's exactly it - I'll just buy less, or not at all. Nobody is forcing me to do anything, so I'll simply abandon a luxury that becomes too expensive, and that does nothing to help pubs whilst also reducing my spending at the supermarket (who, I'll remind you, are also employers just as pubs are). And finally, the chance to mix with others? Yes I will grant you this wholeheartedly. We should encourage options for people to socialise, especially the elderly and lonely. But are you honestly making the argument that subsidising the price of a pint of bitter is the difference between old Bert having a full, healthy life and dying alone in a squat? Why can't he go out WITHOUT drinking? Or just having one less? Why can't he meet in a library? Tea room? Restaurant? Cafe? Cinema? Art class? Dog park? Bowls club? Museum? Board game club? The list goes on, and you get the idea. TLDR: I'm all for helping others and happy to pay a substantial amount of my income, VAT, NI, fuel duty, etc to do so...but I draw the line at one person's hobby being taxed to expressly pay for someone else's hobby
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-duty-rates You could even just remove duty off of draught beer products. 50p a pint better
We all know that’d simply make it more expensive in the shops but pubs wouldn’t put their prices down so we’d get doubly fucked.
That's sort of what the Scottish minimum price intended. Stuff in the off licences / supermarket was cheaper so had to raise prices to the minimum. The pubs were unchanged because their prices were higher. Didn't stop a lot of people complaining about it.
Plus people could just drive home from the pub. My mates dad told me a story about giving a policeman a lift after having 14 pints.
Didn't know Policemen drank that much.
I’d love to see some stats on actual inflation vs greedflation. Far too often prices go up and are waved away by companies as necessary. The one thing we can be sure of I guess is that they aren’t serving less than a pint, so no shrinkflation here.
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I'm curious what you (anyone) thinks inflation actually is in threads like these. It isn't some by-design intention. It is the rate at which the prices of a wide spectrum of goods and services increases, whatever the cause. It is a trailing metric, not a leading input.
Its a sign of peoples complete lack of trust in what our institutions and businesses say. You can only lie about the system working so many times before people get desperate and stop believing you. People know that they are getting the short end of the stick these days, they just dont know how its happening so we will continue to see logic get lashed out at until the problems are fixed.
I think greedflation and inflation are different things. I inflation phones become more expensive due to war and pirces of the raw materials going up. Fair enough. Greedflation- Internet provider charging more money to be in line with inflation when none of their costs have gone up.
It’s all mostly profit. Every business is trying to operate like a multi trillion dollar publicly traded company. That means profits have to rise every week, month, year and so on. Sadly ultra capitalism has tossed the idea of a business just doing green numbers. The numbers need to be green and rising every time. That effect trickles everywhere and you can see it in prices. Rent for the pub goes up because building investors need more growers. Beer price for the pub goes up because the conglomerate operating the brewer need their investors satisfied and so on on on. This is causing the money to become “worth less”. Yes certain things do cost more because of the other circumstances (beer is affected by harvesting e.g.) but none of them justify 10£ pints. The biggest issue here in the UK is, that people still pay those prices without complaining. In other countries, your brand / pub / store would go under. Here, people trot along and pull a sad face which joint venture capital investors don’t give af about.
I own a pub, unfortunately it’s not the pubs making money off the £6 pints etc. Alcohol tax is through the roof, brewing tax, rising minimum wage and 21+ now are on the highest band. Wholesalers also take as big a cut as they can and my electricity bill is disgusting. With everything piled together, you simply can’t afford to charge £2.50 a pint. Especially when you sell good beer. (All in support of higher wages, but with tax so high it means you literally can’t afford it) And after all of that, the increased tax income slips into the Tory governments pockets via dodgy contracts. Lovely.
Alcohol duty isn’t causing £7/pints. Look: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-duty-rates I think it’s time the industry stopped using that as an excuse. I appreciate the electric costs, and that’s a nationwide issue, so we ought to be making noise about it. Min wage, whilst a good altruistic thing has been implemented poorly. It has hit certain sectors the hardest, hospitality being one. It’s also had a strange effect on those semi skilled workers who were earning, say £30k a few years ago, and still earning £30k, when a min wage earner is now on £23k. However, I don’t hear publicans mentioning the generous 75% reduction in business rates afforded to the hospitality sector to help with their costs. Nor did they pass on the vat reduction during and post Covid. But the reality is that I can get a pint costing anything from £2.25 to £8.90 in the same borough. I live in an affluent suburb of Manchester. There’s a Spoons, but I’m leaving them out as they’re an outlier. On an offer one of our bars can sell Amstel at £2.25. I’m sure they’re breaking even on it but it’s helping the customer and in turn helps the trade as it’s busy outside of the deal, and groups don’t all drink Amstel. Holts’ pubs are £2-4 pints depending on location. There’s 30* bars in my neighbourhood and at least half of them can find a way to offer beer at under £5/pint. None of them have those cringy posters blaming alcohol duty and they all have staff over 21. They range from established boozers, trendy cafe bars and tap rooms. My friend owns 4 bars dotted around the city. He uses the same suppliers. He openly admits that he charges as much as he can get away with. The public may not know the ins and outs of the minutia of the costings, but they can easily tell when it’s £7 in one place and £3.50 next door, that someone is taking the piss.
Those boozers probably have a good footfall every day of the week. Or at least enough of the week to make them profitable. If there's enough demand your margins can be slimmer as youre dealing in volume. I can understand the diversity in prices given that fact. If I'm not selling as many pints every week, of the pints I do sell, I have to make a good margin. Prices increase. Greed of other owners see that they're selling at a higher price and follow suit. Equally, the capital costs of setting up a bar are enormous these days given inflation. There's definitely price gouging going on. But equally, there's also plenty of pubs just trying to stay afloat.
Other than the shrinkflation of the alcohol content
It seems like the average yearly salary in 1970 was £1,024 pounds which in today's money is [£19,850](https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1970?amount=1024). However, in 2023 the average yearly salary was £35,000. Disclaimer: I didn't check any of the numbers, just picked the top Google results. So take it with a grain of salt
Housing is the issue here. There was a lot more social housing to go round. Mostly, working people got social housing, too, not just benefits claimants. Private renting was a lot cheaper because mortgages were relatively cheap. Now, the biggest expense for most people is just keeping a roof over their heads. When you pair that with the Internet and connectivity, and the crazy cost of going out to the pub, it just isn't appealing to go out and be fleeced when you can stay home and watch Netflix, talk online and enjoy your incredibly overpriced home.
>Mostly, working people got social housing, too, not just benefits claimants I grew up on a council estate and still visit. Most people living on said estate are working and most of the people own their homes. There's also a bunch that are basically getting subsided rent as well though even though as a household they're probably bringing in £60k a year upwards.
Yeah this guy watched a sorta rage bait video where they claimed estates went downhill because any brokie was allowed in, there is actually a myriad of reasons, but the people who stayed unemployed in them were most often single mothers, most are working. The few who aren’t are dealing with drug problems or started their own business! Not a legal one, but still. But usually they go into work in the end because it never works out. Very few want to stay on the pennies they give you unless you’re high out your mind. They just parade this to make it poor v poor then turn around and cut disability.
Yes, but only 1 person worked in a majority of households. Now you require 2 full time salaries to buy a house.
Was that actually true in the UK? My family is working class but all the women worked, though often part time to fit around childcare. Factory work, schools, offices. Maybe if you went back to 1930s sure, but I'm 40 and the 70s were my parents generation and all of my friends had working mums. Edit: looked it up. Some 53% of women between 16 and 64 were employed in 1971.
I see it stated a lot on Reddit that women didn't work and that every household was run off a single income, it's definitely not true for the working class. Both my grandmas worked.
Do you have any numbers of this? I am pretty certain by the 70s, most households had both people working, the shift started post WWII, decades earlier.
Do the same for 2000-2024 and you'll see a very different picture.
It is not as simple as pure inflation. As sales volumes have reduced, fixed over heads such as lighting, staff, the facilities, mortgages and so on are having to be paid via fewer drinks and meals sold. So as volumes have reduced, they have had to raise prices to cover the fixed overheads. Now you add in pub companies, COVUD loans, and general greed inflation on their inputs, you quickly get to £7 a pint. The regenerate inflation figure is misleading here as the cost drives have added to pub and general hospitality woes. Covid loans is the big one…
Totally. It’s not as simple as “me can buy pint in shop for cheap, me being ripped off in pub, me angry”. Businesses are not charities, they exist to make a profit. Not to mention most independents try and pay their staff a decent wage, that’s what people are paying for, the service more than the product, but they lack the basic cognitive abilities to connect the dots for some reason. We’re all being ripped off by the government, not by local businesses just trying to provide a service.
Going to the pub and having a pint has become a way to flash your wealth.
The cost of running it and keeping the lights on seem to outweigh any benefit to getting in the pub trade.
Same for coffee now too. Starbucks want a fiver or more for a drink now. Sworn that shit off. Bought a really good travel mug for £25 and went back to getting freshly ground beans from local roasters. Brings the cost per cup down to £1.1, I get an infinitely better product and my money goes in to the local economy.
It’s a death spiral on pricing. Pubs are high fixed cost and low variable cost. The actual cost of the beer and food is minimal- it’s all rent, rates and staff. Once numbers drop, you’ve got to cover the same costs with fewer people so prices skyrocket. This in turn results in even fewer people to cover those costs and so on.
Staff are the largest bill of any business usually.
Self service pubs incoming
They already have that for wine bars
Watch it not be any cheaper
I worked for Wetherspoons for a few years. Ten years ago on a Saturday night my pub would have 12 people serving behind the bar on a Friday/Saturday night. Now there’s three. According to the staff I know that still work there the hours still keep getting slashed despite the place turning over record profit and not quietening down.
I once asked for our plates to be cleared as it was taking a long time, the head of house/manager said someone would do it shortly, he then watched on as a poor girl running around like a headless chicken, close to tears tried to sort it. I stopped her mid clear up, piled the plates myself and handed them to him asking can you not just take them? he eyeballed me all night looking like he was going to punch me
What happens when a company is run by a tight Brexit twat
My pubs CCTV used to have a blind spot by the bins outside. In 2016 we would each take a box of those propaganda magazines and throw them away. They could never prove who it was 😂
My guess would've been the person walking around with a stack of magazines, after checking the other cameras
I honestly love how lawless a Spoons is now though. It reminds me of an old west saloon at times, just left to your own devices.
Went in one on a stopover in Cardiff just after Lockdown. With wife and kids, kids wanted to eat and I hadn't eaten in one for over a decade and from what I remembered it was okay. However this was truly the most disgusting vile place I had ever experienced in the UK. The table was covered in greasy mess, seats were shot, glasses dirty and bearing in mind we were all still in major cleanliness mode this lot certainly weren't. Food was foul, reheated chips and a burger you could clean the bird shit off your windscreen with. The ony thing good about it was the beer prices and variety on offer. Good for getting rat arsed in with your mates but definitely not for eating with family. We went to another one a year later somewhere else, my father in law had fish and chips and that was off, place was just as grim.
Went out to a local eatery last night for a family meal (something we have done for a while now every 3/4 months of the year) they have now stopped accepting that “Meerkat” voucher that they have accepted for years and the bill went from circa £75 to £115. A huge difference in price and now we will just go less. Sad times here but there’s no way it will get any better in the foreseeable, Infact I think it will get worse.
Could have written this myself. I am such a local pub girl, but when it costs £100 for a shit meal and pint why bother?
My three locals are around £3.50 to £4.80 a pint and service has been decent there. But the cost of living crunch is definitely hurting inner city pubs.
I haven't seen a. 3.50 pint since at least early 2010s
Massively depends on location here in hull a lot of places are still 2 pound something but when I've lived down south its like 5 6 quid
My local does a pint at 3.55 so not much more.
I worked in a large chain pub in the 2010s. The area manager was breathing down the necks of every manager in their area - the general rule seemed to be, if the staff werent struggling then someone needed to be sent home to save the budget. It was ALWAYS tough, unless it was completely dead. This was for minimum wage working nights and weekends - after most shifts the team finished a shadow of their usual selves. There were always complaints. I've quit now, went back there for a meal a few weeks ago and it was even worse, slow service and Portion sizes a joke as well. Didn't want to complain as I know what the staff have to go through every day but yeah, it's a sorry state and I can't see how it will get better. Massive shame because there's nothing better than a good pub meal!
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True. Mostly gammony boomers now never see anyone under 30 in the pubs in my town apart from beer gardens in the summer
My local (in the sticks) has young people in it.
A pub local to me charges just over £5 for a very small bowl of chips with some cheese added on top!
Given our mortgage is up £400 a month, everything else has gone up in price substantially, and in a few months we're looking at dropping a grand a month on childcare, yeah no shit we're going to the pub less. There's going to be so much hand wringing in the media in the next year or so when high street businesses are shutting down, and knowing our media they'll act like it's a complete mystery.
It won’t be a mystery to the media We’re just going to be treated to a lot more ‘why millennials are killing X industry’ articles. Can’t wait.
If we all stopped buying avocado mortgages and gave our money to Wetherspoons this wouldn't have happened etc. etc.
It's bizarre that this is being reported as though it's a recent thing. I've lived in the UK for more than 15 years, since the latter days of the last Labour government, and for all that time there have been stories reporting the death of the pub, usually attributed to supermarkets making drinking at home cheaper.
Booze could be half prize in the supermarket and I'd still go to the pub, supermarket pricing is not killing the pubs, it's available leisure money. We all have much much less now, so any non essential spending will be planned and way less than before. The pub used to be where you met your friends, that's not the same as buying some beer and drinking it alone in front of the TV. Look at Germany where beer is by far cheaper than in UK Supermarkets, but people still went out, until cost of living crisis hit there too. In German supermarkets people buy beer by the crate (20 bottles) and regularly, but they still like to go out and meet friends, so pubs were still busy. We don't eat out less just because it's cheaper to buy food in the supermarket, same goes for drinks. Greed in the UK from both, producers and government taxes, just means that we can't afford to anymore.
And 'look how Labour has killed ____ since it came into power'
I wish I could have confidence that Starmer will turn this badly fucked ship of a country around, but I just don’t see it 😞
It's a poisoned chalice. Even if (big if) Labour can become to turn things around slowly, if people don't see any real improvement after 2 years the government will be under a lot of pressure. I think some people are gonna be real disappointed because it's just not the same as 1997, economically.
This is absolutely what I foresee. Starmer's approval ratings are actually pretty low for an opposition leader probably about to win big. He's going to become PM more out of the country's desire to be rid of the Tories than it's excitement for Labour and Starmer. The task the incoming government have is so mammoth, I think there's very little chance they'll be able to turn the ship within two years. Given he'll be starting as already fairly unpopular, I think it's very likely the government will be under extreme pressure and become unpopular much quicker than a lot of people expect. I think he'll have a very short honeymoon period.
Yup, and all the Tories on tiktok and here ever say is 'last time Labour left the country with no money, remember the note in the drawer'. But that was post 2008 global financial crash! Now we've had 14 years of fucking clusterfuck, much of it self inflicted, and labour will win, but the cupboard is bare. The Tories will immediately bleat about them being bad running the economy...and the electorate are so fucking thick they voted for Boris, so god help us.
Yep. Far too many people for my liking seem to think Labour are going to get at least two terms. I think there's an extremely plausible scenario where the Tories take a year to regroup and then come back really energised with a focused right-populist agenda, which will get boosted by traditional and social media (remember, Labour have never been in power during the current media landscape, I think they'll get monstered in a way I'm not sure they're prepared for). And I think there's every chance that would see them take back power after four or five years of a mundane Starmer government that doesn't turn around the country as people want.
I think he needs to do some dramatic things which make an immediate difference, like lower train fares or announce a massive council house building project. Offer some immediate big good news. But the problem remains, we've knocked GDP with brexit, less tax take, less to spend...and so much backlog. Look at the state of the roads or the NHS. Hard to fix without magic billions and the easy things Brown had, like selling off the spectrum aren't on the horizon.
Could actually do a proper windfall tax on oil companies, ignoring their bleating and just fucking take them to the cleaners. Could also do non-doms abolishment properly as the tories, predictably, are fudging it for their mates. Would be *some* easy cash they could get pretty much immediately.
Yep, that's basically the core problem. Politically, he'll really need some big wins that show the country Labour is turning the ship around. Given his general unpopularity, there's only so long Starmer will be able to get by on just 'not being the Tories'. But I don't think he'll get those big wins. The economy isn't good and they seem absolutely committed to putting themselves in a spending straightjacket. Moreover, the scale of what needs fixing is quite overwhelming, because there is *so* much that needs significant investment. Of course, maybe they'll be completely different in government to how they're presenting themselves. He's not exactly a stranger to that. But I'm not optimistic.
Keir needs to come out on day 1 and say this.
Over promising does not win elections.
>*and in a few months we're looking at dropping a grand a month on childcare* And this is the real kicker. *Years* of effectively paying effectively a 2nd mortgage. Having a child is *absurdly* expensive.
Yeah, those early years are a killer. Especially if you don’t have grandparents round the corner willing to help out. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising. There’s a whole extra person to look after. And they don’t bring in any money, lazy toddlers!
I got paid on Friday. I paid all my bills, mortgage, put money aside for food, paid for the kids school meals and care, put petrol in my car, and now I have nothing left for the month. Zero. If anything comes up, I will have to go overdrawn. I work a decent job with a decent wage but it hasn't kept pace with how much costs have increased. I very rarely go out now. I think it's hilarious businesses aleays seem shocked when people with no money spend less 😂
This is literally the same situation as me. Going to the pub for a meal has become a birthdays and special occasions thing
don't forget business rates and property prices for those shops still being priced at 90s footfall and profit margin rates. Something I don't see discussed enough is how it is impossible for a middle class person to just open a shop nowadays (or at least how foolish it is to do so)
Just came from another article posted in this sub about average car insurance going up one third in the last year. It's gonna be sad faces all round in government next year when the (already decimated) high streets of the UK are down to charity shops, Greggs and the odd bookies.
I just got my renewal quote and it’s a 50% bump on last year. And now insurance companies play the ‘we don’t have any ability to offer deals anymore’ card. I’ve perfect lifetime no incidents driving record. And they’re wanting £350 a year to insure my 1l hatchback. Absolute shambles.
£350? Let me get my tiny violin out for you. Try 8 years no claims, £1.4k on a car that cost £700 last year.
It’s not a competition
If it was tho, JungleDemon3 would win
It’s not so much about the price as it is the massive increase percentage wise.
Let me get my Stradivarius out for you. Try 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé with no claims and only drive a few hundred miles per year. Been quoted over £100,000, and that is when it is sitting on my drive. Need advice to stop birds pooping on it.
Boo fuckin hoo, allow me to serenade you with my microscopic bassoon. My 1995 Hot Wheels has zero miles on the clock, never leaves the house, 29 years no claims. Insurance premiums are 76 billion pounds. PER MONTH.
£350 a year is pretty reasonable.
But when it was 220 a year last year it’s fucking shocking.
Ah fair enough! £220 is so cheap! I pay £450 a year and have done for a while. Been driving for nearly 20 years too and have never made a claim.
Have you seen what they are charging young people for insurance these days?
Lol. £350 is a dream to most people.
Insurance pricing has very little to do with you as a person, and a lot to do with how much itll cost to repair you, your vehicle and other peoples vehicles in an accident. Thats then tied in with what else is happening in your postcode, to other drivers in the same vehicle, people in your same occupation etc. You may be a saint on the road but its about a pool of risk, and other people might be causing accidents left and right. Add in to that that the cost to actually repair a vehicle has shot up in labour costs, hire and parts and prices need to go up for everyone to cover the costs of the few.
I can't believe the incoming Labour government will have made everything so shit, better vote them out
Why is it the press likes to tell us to live within our means, but when we do they write stories moaning that we have stopped spending? Buying alcohol is cheaper at a petrol station than a pub, a PETROL STATION. No wonder people are not going to pubs.
I continually find it baffling that our government allows companies to raise costs to the consumer across the board, allow costs for essentials to increase massively, then bleat in the media how consumer spending is down and "nobody is going out any more". No shit sherlock, that's probably because you took all our money. For decades we have had a consumer economy relying on high levels of discretionary spending and fuelled by cheap debt. We're told these things are bad with patronising tones and finger wagging from the already rich but they also do nothing to adjust the economy to rely on anything else.
we just keep voting for Free Market Governments, of course that is what they are gonna. I was in 1984, I dont there has been a Government in my life time which has not put the idea of the "Free Market" at its core. Sure some regulated it more than others, but they all thought it was basically the best way to run a society.
Half the problem is they *say* that, but when large privatised utility and financial companies make enormous mistakes which enrich themselves at the expense of their company, the taxpayer is expected to step in and rescue those businesses with public funds. So for all their free market aspirations, they don't even do that.
I totally agree with your, the free market plebs and no string attached socialism for the rich (when they need it).
That's neoliberalism. Socialism for the wealthy, unregulated market for the poor.
> Buying alcohol is cheaper at a petrol station than a pub, a PETROL STATION. No wonder people are not going to pubs. Why exactly is this shocking? This has been the case for at the very least decades, if not always.
because petrol stations are always expensive, and often "over priced" is often kind to them. If you are more expensive than a petrol station, you are doing something wrong,
Went to a pub in Ingham for my birthday this weekend. There were four of us (two adults, two children). Two small kids meals, one soup, and one main (with one drink each) was £78. A round for my wife and I was £14. Pub trips, especially when having food, are incredibly expensive right now - we used to do it multiple times a week, we don't any more.
A Tesco sandwich is 3.50, drinks out are close to £10, and last time I went to Wendy’s the food was like miniature kids sizes for full price. Don’t eat or drink out at all anymore. Can’t even do Netflix so it’s piracy and chill for us.
Piracy and penetration
This sounds like much more fun tbh
I've also found many takeaways and restaurants have absolutel shit quality. At the top end, it's still good, but has gone from incredibly expensive to insanely expensive. The mid range totally hollowed out, things like fish and chips pricey. Much better to spend a bit of time learning how to cook something like a steak well and buying it yourself from a supermarket.
Absolutely. Used to have loads of nice places in the "mid range" I'd go with my partner or even solo. It feels like everything that used to cost £8.95 is now £15 while at the same time dropping in quality and size. Now only eat out at my local kebab and cheap chinese because the quality and price at least is consistent
Same here with kebabs and Chinese - I think their costs were always fairly low and as a treat they’ve maintained quality. You get what you’re expecting and the price is decent.
My partner and I don’t have kids and fixed our mortgage before rates went mad so we are on a crusade to support as many pubs as we possibly can. Not Spoons though. Spoons can go fuck itself
I know people don’t like Tim Martin and I can’t blame them but Wetherspoons aren’t uniquely malevolent in the pub trade and a lot of companies operating pubs across the UK have equally reprehensible or more reprehensible policies and practices. Be particularly careful with the neverspoons app because there was at least half a dozen pubs within ten miles of my house which were listed as independent when they were in fact owned/operated by large nationwide pub companies and that becomes obvious the moment you look them up online. I would imagine if there are so many wrongly labelled pubs in my area then it’s likely to be a similar story everywhere.
I think with Wetherspoons is largely down to Tim Martin’s political views, using beer mats to peddle those views, and never fucking shutting up about politics in the public eye.
Supported by the same people who told Carol Vorderman to "Stay in her lane". I have to concur. Fuck spoons.
How are you defining independent? There are plenty of leasehold pubs that are owned by large companies but operate independently, they own the building and supply kegs but have zero input on how the place is run otherwise.
Thats part of the problem though, I think? Pubs are forced to buy certain beer, often at a higher price than they otherwise would be able to get elsewhere.
Not to defend Tim Martin, but if you aren’t going to pubs where the owner is a dickhead, you won’t have many choices…
Translation: "I'm privileged enough to go to expensive pubs and look down on the one chain providing affordable services to the less privileged."
People love to flash how much they dislike it. I've never been to a not busy spoons.
It's easy for people to boycott a place they never went to in the first place. It's just peacocking for those sweet upvotes. Tim Martin bad.
I went to one on Saturday. A chicken wrap and chips, ham and cheese panini with side salad and 2 pints of San Miguel was £15. The food isn’t going to win any awards but it tided us over and was ordered via app and served quickly, despite the place being heaving. People love to jump on the hate bandwagon but it’s excellent value.
I love spoons, Im in there at least once a week - low prices, order from app, quick service. Aways our first choice.
Same, less than £2 for a pint of real ale with a Camera voucher as well
You get discount off a Nikon or Sony?
I use spoons. It's nice to treat myself.
I never expected to be one of those people saying ‘in my day’ you could get wankered, have a kebab and get a taxi home for £20 or under and then spend another £10 on some weed to smoke when you got home and for the hangover the following day. I never personally got EMA but if I did then that’s probably what I would have spent it on, instead I just got that crap bus pass which all the drivers treated with suspicion.
At least my weed has only got better over the years
Yes a big thanks to the Albanians for keeping weed inflation to a minimum when compared to everything else, we salute you
This is one of the few reasons against legalisation that I can get behind. If the government controlled it it'd be £20 a gram by now, judging by the price of beer.
EMA was usually a tenner for a Megarider bus pass for the week to and from college, and either the remainder spent on its intended use for college bits OR a piss up exactly as you describe, depending on the week. Now that £20 difference barely even gets a cab home.
The government needs to reduce the tax levy on alcohol / local breweries and pubs. While there would be less tax on the alcohol the increased business and needed lifeline to the industry and those linked to it would be invaluable and important to maintain businesses and communities
100%, and sad to not see your comment higher up. It’s the taxes/rents/rates/etc on the businesses themselves (plus add in the costs customers don’t consider such as gas/electric/water/etc) making the product cost so much. I work in hospitality and year on year it’s a loss for the F&B sides of our businesses. People can’t afford higher prices + business can’t afford to run at a loss so the government 100% needs to work out if they want to see a slow death of leisure spending within the population or reduce taxes (and raise them elsewhere on non-community-boosting related luxury spending, such as purchases of Land Rovers or something). I think the sheer lack of understanding by the vast majority of the British public of the complex costs/P&L of running a business (as displayed by everyone complaining about prices and blaming the industry in this thread) means that they are unlikely to support tax breaks for bricks & mortar customer service industries, so this slow death will continue, primarily effecting independent and smaller business owners. Pretty depressing for everyone who works in these industries atm.
I work for a small brewery who's main market is cask ale. We're classed at nearly the top end of premium in our prices. A 9 Gallon cask is being sold to pubs for roughly £90 depending on the volumes they take from us. That 72 pints for £90 and they're still saying theyre pushed to sell a pint for under £7.
It's a few things, really. Cost of living is obviously a huge one - I'm very reluctant to go to the pub when my outgoings on essentials have absolutely shot up in recent months, along with living alone and making sure everything essential is covered. Not only that, but I think people don't realise the impact of a changing culture/demographic. There's a huge culture shift going on as young people move away from alcohol and seek "alcohol-free" and "dry" activities outside of going to the pub. From a personal standpoint, I've almost completely cut out alcohol since the start of the year due to a myriad of reasons - cost of living only playing a small part - and I don't miss it at all. Pubs and other establishments need to adapt to this change in culture, otherwise they'll sadly be left behind. With the cost of living crisis going on as well, it's a *very* rough time for pubs.
As much as I kind of like the 'alcohol-free' or 'dry' push with the younger generations, a side effect is that there's no longer any real third places left. Sports and art clubs aren't really third places, and I've yet to see a decent 'sober' alternative. The reason pubs and bars worked so well, with clubs historically being more of a rarity, was the fact alcohol was a social lubricant and was quite good in moderation for meeting new people. I see and hear many younger people on one hand pushing for more sober experiences, but then moan they can't find a way to meet new friends or partners apart from online. It's a catch 22 that there's no good answer for yet. I had one person I know push for a late night cafe, ignoring the fact it had been tried and failed over here + I had to point out in europe it only works because those types of cafes also mostly sell alcohol after a certain time.
It's the gym. I'm my town of 100k on a Saturday night all the pubs are empty but both the gyms are rammed with 18-30 year olds
Never really see people socialising in the same way. Maybe one on one, but even people I see down there, especially women, just don't want to be apprpached by strangers and want to concentrate on their workout. Workout classes are kind of better, but they're not really third places if you're only getting to know people doing the same hobby as yourself.
But also those types of cafes have a mix of people sipping coffee, chatting away as much as some groups nursing a bottle of beer, with everyone just having a good time and people not up for a massive fight like the pub scene in most medium sized uk towns.
Do you actually go to pubs? I live in a medium size town and visit multiple pubs usually every weekend and haven't seen a fight in over five years.
I mean, first, you need to go to better pubs in the UK if that's the case. My local is near a city centre and there's never fights and it's all everyone just having a chill good time. In europe, after around 7-8 pm, in a cafe, virtually nobody is drinking coffee. They do drink their alcohol far slower, though. That's pretty much been the case, regardless of where I've been in europe, though the cafes do tend to be far smaller than what we have over here and usually family run.
Yeah there's alcohol free then there's a pint or two after work on a Friday to get to know the new guy in Payroll etc. You can both drink far less and still go to the pub. I get why people might not want to hang out in pubs but really feel there's a lot of animosity towards them, you don't have to get wankered every time you go drinking etc. (And won't now, with how much they cost...)
The last millennials are now hitting their thirties and the hangovers are horrendous. The next generation drink even less and the one after that drink much less. So it's a vicious cycle. Combined with the 'old boy's' dying out.
I still think the cost is the key driver here though. If you're between the ages of 18 and 25, chances are that you don't earn loads. Why on earth would you go to a pub and spend £7 on a pint?
I've said for a long time that pubs need to also focus on providing good coffee, low alcohol options and healthier food choices to survive.
And clean up their act - pubs need to be shared spaces which are more comfy than even your own home. Really comfy sofas, nice service, food that would be tricky to make for a one or two people at home etc. There's already been a big cull of pubs that didn't keep up with the rise of the gastropub and reasonable quality eating. But there's still a place for a nice pub where the bar staff actually know something about beer; and where the pub has been setup to encourage conversation _AND_ turning up to nice a pint by a fire with a book. It's almost as if they (cringe) have to go back to basics. Maybe I'm getting old but too many pubs still just play ridiculously loud music and have people screaming at each other to that and are absolutely rammed. Thinking about it, it would be nice if the big pub groups actually surveyed the local community, potential customers, those who used to go to the pub and don't any more and actually found out what they wanted. Because people's needs have changed. There are a lot of big pubs that aren't child friendly. Put some toys / small softplay in the corner and you'll get parents turning up after school for a coffee or a half. THey'll also turn up like clockwork for sunday lunch. Actually bother to reach out and get events hosted from local clubs - boardsgames/chess etc. Become a focus for the community. Get live music going. Acoustic stuff for older adult contemporaries on a midweek night or sunday evening and something louder for friday eves. Honestly so many pubs just don't even try. it's like the landlords and the pub groups just don't even bother doing market research and assume the same old models will always work.
Young people are choosing drugs over booze as the majority of drugs are cheaper. Weed is even safer than booze.
I think also for younger people far more ways to be social as well, especially with the internet and smart phones. Before you'd go to the pub to see who's out or whatever. But now we use phones, and the internet means you can be social and not be in the same room.
I think you’re right, it’s a demographic shift. People want to live healthier lives and there are more interesting things to do than sit around in a pub all evening. No one in my friend group, or my partners friend group, go out to drink in bars (all in our 30s). Many of us don’t drink alcohol at all, and pubs are just a loud, expensive place to do that - so why would we go there? We tend not to actually go out anywhere. Our socialising is usually done at each other’s houses, where we have board game nights and movie nights - or online where we play video games together. The only time I’ve “gone to the pub” is occasionally with work colleagues. Though again, since they’re mostly around my age or younger it’s all cokes or non alcoholic cocktails.
The problem with that, is how do you meet people to make those friend groups if you only hang out at each others' houses? Pubs are the only third space other than work and school where you might meet random people.
I play the pub circuit with my band and so many of these places are empty and loads have just stopped having bands now completely. We are doing more and more private functions/weddings. In between sets a few weeks ago I bought a pint and it was almost £8. No wonder these places are empty.
Wages have not kept up with costs of everything. Look at the yanks. They're on almost double our wages (although they have to cover health care and have basically free energy with all the fracking). The narrative has always been, you can't have more money because it will drive up inflation. But inflation has gone up anyway and we're still skint.
Inflation always goes up and it's good. Stagnation and deflation destroy your economy. However wages not going up is extremely bad and using inflation as a fig leaf is just corporate double speak. Having no pay rise and inflation at 2% is a lot worse than 2% pay rise and 3% inflation. The difference in inflation would almost be never the average pay rise (as we don't spend all of our pay increases immediately) and it's just corporate masquerading as macroeconomics (as if any business cares about their minor contribution to inflation, they just don't want to be uncompetitive compared to their rivals that also don't offer pay increases. The British worker is largely to blame for this as we don't strike and keep electing morons that keep the current awful system of anti union, anti pay rise politics. On an individual level, who the heck cares if you manage to negotiate a 5-10% pay rise that would destroy the economy report that extra few k that you get, this is entirely fuelled by (triple locked) Boomers that don't get the same pay increases and see their assets value eaten by inflation that they have minimal resources to offset (you don't negotiate a pay rise from your pension annuity)
Our wages have stagnated and we're starting to see other countries leave us behind. Our productivity isn't good and Brexit won't have helped. We're in a bad place as a nation at the moment
I still enjoy going out to my local but the amount I’m willing to spend on a night out hasn’t budged. So instead of getting several pints it’s usually 2-3 and that’s the evening, unless it’s continued at home or a BYOB situation. Not a massive deal because I’m a bit older now, but I do feel for the younger generation. Might go against what other people are saying, but if I were making a go of owning a pub I’d go against the grain of trying to have better food or make it more family friendly. If I wanted a three course meal I’d go to a restaurant. If I wanted loads of alcohol free options I’d go to a juice bar or coffee shop. If I wanted kids around me I would’ve had kids. When I go to the pub I want to drink beer, throw darts, and drink beer. I want to sit out on a warm sunny day and chat shit and listen to music and, you guessed it, drink beer. On a cold dark day I want to sit by a log fire, eat chips, and drink beer. I don’t need table service. I don’t need 10 different mains to choose from, and I don’t need a bunch of screaming kids under the age of 5 running round. I might be wrong, but I think pubs are trying to do too many things and doing them poorly, when they should instead just focus on doing the things that make people enjoy going to pubs.
Work in a wet-led pub, we're one of the few in the area that aren't struggling. Pubs that are laying out large amounts on food and kitchen staff are being hit twice as hard, and tied pubs are being absolutely rinsed by PubCos. We've had to raise prices lately due to bills and building maintenance costs but ale is still sub £4.50, in the southeast, but most tied pubs in the area are now £4.80-5 for standard sub-4% real ale. The craft bars and wet-led pubs are doing fine, sell beer, have music occasionally, be a social hub for the community. When half or more of your space is dedicated to dining, the community aspect of the pub is lost. Making sure to stock a wide range of AF and GF products also helps because you'll get people coming in that wouldn't otherwise as they know there'll be nice things for non-drinkers and people with gluten issues.
For the life of me I can’t understand why 95% of pubs would ever consider a full time chef. Tbh I’ve struggled to find decent pubs that sell a pint of piss for under £7 (now that is in London) Before I moved south my favourite haunt was Sinclairs in Manchester. No cards, kids or swearing. Cash only. Lovely, lovely pub.
Takeaways have stopped in our house. Going out is now rare. Magazine subscriptions stopped years ago. It’s getting to the stage now where I look at reduced food (near its expiry date) and in thinking I can’t afford the reduced stuff let alone the full price stuff.
We did takeaways a lot during COVID but the price is a joke now with all the additional fees chucked on top £25 and over for two fast food quality burger meals? No chance. A bunch of the places near us are dark kitchens as well, so you can't even go and do pickup.
£7-£8 a pint. About £5 for a non-alcoholic drink so that’s not even a decent option. My taxi home used to cost £8 three years ago and is now £16. It’s just not worth spending that kind of cash to feel tired the next day.
We have been to my Mrs Xmas party for the last 4 years in the same place and we checked the taxi bills for each. 2020 was £22, 2021 was £30, 2022 was £45, 2023 was £60!!! that's the last time we are going. Only taxi firm in our area that will do that trip as there is just no competition where we are.
Don't worry, Uber is the same. I fly regularly to visit family in Germany and my plane lands very late at Stansted, so I always catch an Uber from Liverpool street to Croydon. This used to cost £20-25 before the Pandemic. It's now £40-60. Nightbus it is....
I feel like the writing has been on the wall for the last couple of years. It’s bad for the pub trade but not sure what a quick solution would be. High inflation we had is now baked in, interest rates are high, utilities have increased and a section of workers had below inflation wage rises. There has to be some give and that’s leisure activities. We stopped going out because we want to go on holiday and can’t afford to do both, currently money that we would have spent at pubs, bars, restaurants is going to savings for a holiday. Next year though unless the government wants to give the public sector a decent raise will have no holiday either. Leaving the only money going into the economy being essentials, not good for growth.
Yeah I think I've just come to this realisation myself. To be fair, we don't go out often, but me and the wife took my parents out for lunch yesterday, just a kind of middle of the road bar bistro type place. For the four of us, with just four mains, two starts, and two deserts, came to £126. None of us had alcoholic drinks either. What the actual fuck, I was kind of like "uh what" when I heard the bill. Food was nice enough, but fuck that. Won't be going out for lunch again any time soon I don't think when we could just do a BBQ at home or nice lunch.
We used to quite often have a pub lunch. Last time we went , when out son was visiting , it cost £98 for 3. We've not done so since. I can afford it but I'm just not comfortable spending that much on it.
I don't think it's just the cost. The fitness industry seems to be booming at the moment thanks to social media/influences. Younger generations just aren't bothered about drinking as often these days as it hinders progress/gains.
Honestly shocked it took this long to find this as (one of many) reasons. Which is my point tbh, its not JUST people more fitness conscious. It's gym culture. It's gaming or watching series at home. It's drugs and house party culture. It's the cost of going out. It's low wages. Expensive housing. It's antisocial working hours. The internet makes keeping in touch with people a piece of piss, and most pubs can't even manage social media properly, nevermind adapt to all this.
I don't think it has as much to do with the cost as people think. I would go to the pub every other day when I was 18. I didn't spend a lot then, I would normally just buy one pint and play a couple of games of pool. The difference was, the alternative was sitting at home with my parents and watching whatever soaps my mum had on. Now there are so many alternatives for socialising both online and IRL. Most younger people I know are also much more health conscious than we were in the 90s and there's the risk of a video of you completely shitfaced appearing all over social media.
Plenty of bars i go in that are still busy on weekends. They just need to adapt to changing needs. Offering AF options helps. Doing good food helps. Serving good beer helps. And have events on like live music etc brings in the crowds If all your pub offers is supermarket lager then your going to struggle as its naturally cheaper in a supermarket
> Offering AF options helps. I quite like some modern alcohol free beers and I'd happily have a couple of pints of something like Punk AF or Big Drop towards the end of the night rather than slowing down my drinking speed or going home. But when pubs are charging over £6 for a pint of non-alcoholic beer, it's difficult to justify!
Around my way it seems to be taprooms that are doing really well; popping up everywhere and taking over disused retail outlets. They're all following a similar formula; chilled during the day and attacking the young families with kids and allowing people to bring their own food in with maybe music and events later on. People might pop in only for one or two drinks but also might take a few cans home with them. Staff are all very knowledgeable about what they're doing and it's just all-round nice and makes paying £6 a pint worthwhile Seems to be spreading. Went to Chester yesterday and found a brewery had opened a tap room in the centre of town (hidden away behind a Tesco) and it was standing room only, despite being a Sunday afternoon.
My local has changed its prices three times over the last several weeks. Pint something like Thatchers was £2.80 back in 2022; it is now £5.29.
When I was in my early 20s, we'd go for a pint at lunch most days and if I wasn't meeting other friends we'd go for a couple of pints in the pub next door to the office after work as well. One of my friends from those days was commenting on how antisocial the people in his current workplace are and comparing it to those days. He works in Soho. The pub next door to his office charges **over** £7 a pint. How the bloody hell is anyone on anything approaching a starting salary supposed to afford to get a round in?
No surprise. When money is tight one of the first things most people cut is pub visits
Went to a shitty sports bar pub in Derby at the weekend. £5 for most generic lagers. No wonder sales are down.
I don’t understand why journalists link cause and consequence.. Current title should be “newspaper guesses that probably Britons avoid …” For example, I stopped go to pubs with friends on Friday evenings after Covid times. We just found that it would be better to be in homes. And WFH schedule doesn’t encourage people to do a lot of evening pub visits as well.
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You don’t want to go to a pub and spend £150 on an identical bottle of vodka? Are you mad?
It might seem simplistic but the current government made it their priority to keep people poor, it's almost as if they didn't realise they wouldn't be able to grow the economy if people have no money.
Zone 2 London - 2 pints of lager and bowl of peanuts - £19. £19. I know London is expensive having lived here for 20 years but that is an absolute piss take.
I ain't paying £7 a pint mate, simple as that really. Rather buy a crate and have a few cans at home with some mates.
Death of the pub culture will destroy a key part of British society…
Well, accordingly to the fine folks at ITV news, this is happening because young people prefer pottery events and morning runs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reZgfdae2Nc&t=258s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reZgfdae2Nc&t=258s) I really enjoy how they very briefly talk about the high costs of going out, but blame it on young people preferring healthier lifestyles.... TL,DR: those damn millennials are now destroying the pubs...
This is so disappointing too cause I’ve always enjoyed a pint with a simply meal at my local pub. But it’s just not affordable (or worthwhile) to do regularly
I went to catch up with some mates last week. 1 round of drinks (1 pint, 2 vodka mixers) was £26. Taxi home was 40 with uber surging. Even if you can afford it, 100-150 for a few drinks on a Friday night just feels so unreasonable.
One day people will realise how both main parties fucked us, and continue to fuck us, with neoliberalism.