Toque says, about this pub:
That's as maybe and this blog thoroughly agrees with the sentiment. However, business is business and if it's not paying, it has to be sold. The real question is why people stopped drinking there in any numbers anyway.
The answers include the smoking ban, supermarket and off-licence booze, massive franchise establishments, changing fast and trendy lifestyles, poor service, the change downwards in the nature of the remaining clientele and so on but the simple fact is that people are not coming through that door, except in search of a pee.
Why? In my case - the cost. With lunch at £6, dinner main course at £10 and a beer at £3, just one evening with your wife or mates adds up to a substantial bill. Only the white collar worker in relatively safe employment can afford that any more.
One of this blogger's major character flaws is to continually ask why. So why has the price gone into the stratosphere and the pub become a less cheery place to go now? More importantly, what ultimate price will be paid by the society by removing one of the key pillars in British social cohesion? Like the coffee houses of the time of the men of letters, the pub was always the ideas exchange, where social values and community cohesion were reinforced.
Was the acquisitive society on speed a natural consequence of change or was there any social engineering behind this, long ago?
The plan is to demolish Chequers and build some flats. Local residents do not want the pub to be demolished ...
That's as maybe and this blog thoroughly agrees with the sentiment. However, business is business and if it's not paying, it has to be sold. The real question is why people stopped drinking there in any numbers anyway.
The answers include the smoking ban, supermarket and off-licence booze, massive franchise establishments, changing fast and trendy lifestyles, poor service, the change downwards in the nature of the remaining clientele and so on but the simple fact is that people are not coming through that door, except in search of a pee.
Why? In my case - the cost. With lunch at £6, dinner main course at £10 and a beer at £3, just one evening with your wife or mates adds up to a substantial bill. Only the white collar worker in relatively safe employment can afford that any more.
One of this blogger's major character flaws is to continually ask why. So why has the price gone into the stratosphere and the pub become a less cheery place to go now? More importantly, what ultimate price will be paid by the society by removing one of the key pillars in British social cohesion? Like the coffee houses of the time of the men of letters, the pub was always the ideas exchange, where social values and community cohesion were reinforced.
Was the acquisitive society on speed a natural consequence of change or was there any social engineering behind this, long ago?
You could start with business rates going through the roof.
ReplyDeleteOn other points, refer back to my former blog.
It is deliberate.
Destroy talking centres, communities, - substitute "council approved/funded/agendered, centres".
Same thing with farmers, but via other means.
Part of the bigger picture!
This whole fiasco did start with the no smoking ban. We all quite easily predicted which pubs would thrive and which would struggle due to this ruling. Then the prices went up and the struggling pubs shut! Incidentally the thriving ones are still doing well, they are still as busy as they ever were...
ReplyDeleteLike the post offices, I suppose and maybe the 'doing well' means that drinkers are migrating from the closed pubs and that makes it look like the remaining pubs are thriving.
ReplyDelete