old - Fazer Owners Club - old
General => General => Topic started by: Streetbudgie on 14 May 2013, 06:55:19 pm
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I've heard some interesting arguments on this one
I think it it is to do with the changing population of London reflecting the increase in the number of those from overseas and and those with a different heritage from the indigenous Englishman
For religious reasons some people don't drink alcohol and other countries just don't have going to Pubs as part of their social culture.
I thought I could list some countries that do but apart from UK, Ireland and Germany I really can't.
Greek people on the whole like a bevy but it's usually around family and a meal with kids and granny et all involved.
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Its not just London but all over the country but I do think its a change in culture to a more family orientated focus. The traditional pub is finding it hard to compete with cheep sales from shops as the outlets for alcohol were the beer off/off licence and the changing working paterns and demographics of the working population.
Daz
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Smoking ban started it, prices finished it. All of our pubs are now turning into resaurants, thats where the money is now.
It aint just london, all the local village pubs round here are dead on a weekend now, ironically its only the eastern european powerdrinkers that are spending any money on alcohol round here, the english all seem to drink at home now.
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What is better than sitting in the garden of a nice country pub in the summer? Problem is, how do you get there??? Cost of petrol is sky high and you cant drink and drive, add to this that you can get 12 cans in Tesco`s for the price of 3 pints and all starts to become clear!!!
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The price of beer is driving the pubs shut as well as the smoking ban.
Hey ho, new times!
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My loal is packed with youngsters at the weekend but prety dead the rest of the week. I only go there when its 2quid a pint in happy hour. I suppose us parents are subsidising our kids having fun. Cant begrudge them that thou eh.
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I prefer boozin at home, no smart asses, loud music or aggressive drunks to deal with. Especially when I can have a bbq going at the same time.
Weatherspoons are decimating pubs by being cheap and good value. Nowt wrong with that imho provided they keep the tv's and music off
MOst of the pubs that are closing probably sold flat ale or gave food poisoning. You have to be successful in public houses to survive. If you don't innovate and provide hygienic quality even if it's at a cost you'll be gone (or shut down) in no time
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that,s very true simonm i agree. i am in wales cheap beer they say,in my local 369 a pint of stella, in the shop 4 cans 429.
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How are Weatherspoons decimating pubs??? They do good food for a good price and cheap beer. They took the monopoly from the major breweries by not being so greedy. They make a small profit on everything but over a grand scale. There is no music in Weatherspoon pubs, only in Lloyds.
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good food :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin :rollin come on.
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fish and chips isnt good food then??? Im sure we have all eaten it!!!
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How are Weatherspoons decimating pubs??? They do good food for a good price and cheap beer. They took the monopoly from the major breweries by not being so greedy. They make a small profit on everything but over a grand scale. There is no music in Weatherspoon pubs, only in Lloyds.
Wetherspoons are decimating expensive (read traditional) pubs by providing a cheap and quality alternative ? I suspect you're agreeing with me without understanding my post.
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Make mine a beer and a chicken burger ;-). Could be tempted by the steak or curry days too.
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A lot of real traditional pubs shot them selves in the foot by being greedy in the first place. Not just in the prices they charged but also in the rent they charged landlords etc. Manns, whitbreads, Charlie Wells etc all had a good selection of pubs in virtually every town, Weatherspoons have thrived because they have reasonable prices, not because they are a large chain. They usually only have a couple of pubs in each town whereas the major league brewers had anything up to 20. If weatherspoons can sell it cheap, why couldnt they, especially as most of them brewed their own beer as well?
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Falling incomes. Private companies also pushing people towards lower pay and poorer conditions etc.
People stuck with big mortgages, or you have rising rates cos folks can't get mortgages. Higher levels of unemployment. Student debt.
Triple dip recession.
Apparently we are drinking more than ever though. Cheap supermarket booze, it's never been cheaper. And of course supermarkets use drink as a loss leader. I mean I can pick up a bottle of decent whisky for a tenner from Morrisons, gotta be a loss leader.
If a pub wants to survive it needs to look at it's market, and changing tastes. A lot of white indigenous folks want more from their pub than just somewhere to get pissed on crap beer.
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Exactly, when you go to the pub its not cos youre thirsty, you are paying for the whole social aspect. It is always cheaper to drink at home, but its not as much fun. Some pubs do this so much better than others.
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what about the drama aspect in city pubs,,,,yunguns getting pissed and fightin over sod all, constantly havin to watch ur things for fear of theft, people invadin ur space tryin to flog u dvd's or drugs etc constantly q-ing at peak times and then bein pissed at the bill, people nickin ur drinks or spillin them and tellin u "fuck off its ur fault" arguing over the pool table or rules or who put coin down first, nutters,,and i mean proper nutters approachin u in all manner of ways for money....oh yeah and the toilets....we wont go there .(takes a breath)..who the fuck would want to drink in a city pub.
me and a girl i used to live with got up on sat mornings went for a breccy and chose a weatherspoon somewhere in the country and just drove there for lunch dinner whatever on our bikes,,,,easily a 100 different pubs plus our local. medium food at a good price and the beer is well priced..i have nevver seen a hint of trouble in the many ive been to. all age groups and family friendly..and the bogs are clean
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:eek Exup, I'm heading down to Woking today and then out in London tomorrow night (never been to London) so sounds like fun !!
On the pub front, Wetherspoons can do cheap because of there buying power when it comes to stock. 'Ok Mr brewery man we will take X thousand barrels and we want them for X pounds', 'Ok Mr spoons we can do that as your business keeps us going with the amount of pubs you have'.
As for their food, posh Mc Donalds at best. When I go out for a meal I like to eat something that is not ready available to us at our local shops etc, then you don't get the old favourite of " I could make this " feeling.
Hardly ever drink at home, love the crack in a pub :guitar
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I have a flat in Southwark that I use when I'm 'uptown' and the pubs around there seem to be thriving during the week, a lot of the city boys come over after work for a pub crawl but they are mostly white or rich young Asian types who have money to burn and they arn't local. At weekends it's tourists who throng the bars from Blackfriars to Borough right down the river to Wapping (a pub crawl I've done often) The pubs that are closing in London are those that are off the tourist trail and in areas where the number of immigrants is almost a majority and very few of them drink.
At home in Cornwall, I only go to the pub occaissionally after fishing on the coast, my local pub is ruined by over loud music which seems to be for the benefit of the young staff rather than the customers who can hardly hear themselves speak.
Si
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When I go out for a meal I like to eat something that is not ready available to us at our local shops etc, then you don't get the old favourite of " I could make this " feeling.
Exactly my feelings, If I can make better at home I resent paying for it.
Especially Weatherspoons where it's just reheated mass produced stuff, but there beer is cheap!
In my village there's two pubs. One is a really nice open plan place but sells reheated food at un-cheap prices and the other has had a succession of landlords who all seem to get it wrong. The food there is fresh, but so hit and miss but the atmosphere is lousy. Even the landlady (who must recognise our faces), never aknowledges us or gets off her bar stool to serve when theres people waiting and mooches round in her slippers :lol
One weatherspoons I occasionally use is near the Highbury tube station. On a match day, they have around 12 servers behind the bar so you can get served quickly despite the place being rammed. And a beer and a burger is really cheap. (I can stomach a gormet burger and chips if beer is involved :lol )
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The only problem with that line of reasoning is that I find it hard to admit that anywhere makes better food than I do at a price I'm willing to pay :lol.
e beer and a burger is my excuse to myself that it's better value and just as good as a zinger meal, subway, boots/Tesco meal deal and/or greggs and includes beer.
s just a lunch thing :\
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Not just London. The village I live had 4 pubs when I first moved here. There is now 1. They were all tied pubs and the brewery kept putting the price of their beer up which the Landlord had to pass on to the customers so less people could afford to drink more than once a week. The last one to shut was going to be refurbished by the brewery but is now up for sale so will probably end up as a private house. :(
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I have a flat in Southwark that I use when I'm 'uptown' and the pubs around there seem to be thriving during the week, a lot of the city boys come over after work for a pub crawl but they are mostly white or rich young Asian types who have money to burn and they arn't local. At weekends it's tourists who throng the bars from Blackfriars to Borough right down the river to Wapping (a pub crawl I've done often) The pubs that are closing in London are those that are off the tourist trail and in areas where the number of immigrants is almost a majority and very few of them drink.
At home in Cornwall, I only go to the pub occaissionally after fishing on the coast, my local pub is ruined by over loud music which seems to be for the benefit of the young staff rather than the customers who can hardly hear themselves speak.
Si
I can remember when The Anchor on Bankside was a great place to go - ruined now by the appalling Travel Inn bolted on to the side and in what was the beer garden; tourist hell now sadly.
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Pubs are closing cos they're fuckin extortionate. And its not restricted to London.
On the food aspect. If its wethergoons or shitbread, the fact is that its frozen chip amd microwaves. Ok, steaks and other meat products may come in uncooked, but the cheffing involved is minimal. I have plenty confidence I can do better at home, and regularly do so. I won't eat lasagna anywhere because mine is so good (it really is).
Restaurants on the other hand I do like because they are cooking (or at least they should be) but sometimes I think I can do better. Not often mind, although it depends where it is.
But the problem is that while I'm happy to get pished in the hoose, I like a draught pint. I'm not too bothered about social adpects as I often drink alone but I do like a good pint and hopefully a quiet pub to drink it in.
Currently, for the level I like to drink at, I need anywhere between 30 and 50 sheets to spend a few hours supping. Its an average price of a pint in the weege is easily 3.50 unless you go to wethergoons or similar. Thats fine, or it would be if they weren't full of arseholes, which they are in glasgow too often for my liking.
People say the smoking ban had an effect on trade. In glasgow, not so much. 2006 it came in and I been working in pubs on and off for the last 13 years, consistently (full time almost) between 2007 and 2011 and noticed no significant drop until around 2009 ie housing crash and recession. Clubbing took the hit earlier but only in the bigger scale superclubs like fabric and the arches as more people moved away from higher and higher ticket prices to get a more intimate experience. These big acts playing these venues now do stadium tours and traditional gig venues.
Overall its just shit. Raise our wages and we might start kicking the trade back in as we look to spend our dosh
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Its closer to 4.50 a pint rather
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Its closer to 4.50 a pint rather
I remember a walking past a drunk English tourist yelling on his mobile: "mate, you must come here, it's xxx euros per pint!" (don't remember the price he quoted, but it was funny still). Beer here is around 1.5 euros in pubs. For 2 euros you can get really nice German beer. I remember days when beer cost around 0.2 euros in pubs and it was good! :)
At the stores, prices are 2 to 4 times lower. Pubs thrive in my city - we love to drink and eat obviously. :)
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I am sitting in my local with a glass of diet cola (from the gun) and wondering why they charged me £3.20, and its not even a pint.
Last night I was in a Weatherspoons which was packed. Drinking a very pleasant bitter, HOBGOBLIN, at just £2.19/pint :thumbup
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I stopped going to the pub when they removed the pinball machines, arcade machines, pool tables and dart boards.
I used to love going to the pub and playing a few games with my mates and listening to the juke box.
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I stopped going to the pub when they removed the pinball machines, arcade machines, pool tables and dart boards.
I used to love going to the pub and playing a few games with my mates and listening to the juke box.
20 years ago I used to live in Stratford East London and I was a very competitive when it came to pinball. I used to go round all the pubs playing the machines and making sure my initials 'SIP' were displayed on the high score screen. I can proudly boast that for a stretch of two whole weeks I held the high score on EVERY machine in the Stratford area.
One day we did the usual pub crawl and found the initials 'RAY' has displaced mine on several machines and I spent a few bob knocking the blighter off the top spot. He did the same to me over the next few weeks until we met at last and had a brilliant shoot out and I took £50 off him and a bit more in bets with our spectators.
On reflection, a sad way to waste time and money but quite exciting. Our fave machine was 'The Adams Family' it's the fastest game and definately the noisiest, the average score people got on this machine was about 6 million points or so, I won the shoot out with 135 billion!
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With regards to the smoking ban, I started using pubs again when it came in!!
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my local pub is still going well, it has a great bunch of locals who still like a good pint after work, and they cater for birthday bashes and any other sort of celebration, the owner is a local lass and she has done the place up to good modern standards--no nutters or zoomers get in, just decent ordinary people and she keeps it that way. :pc
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On the pub front, Wetherspoons can do cheap because of there buying power when it comes to stock.
How can weatherspoons have a better buying power of beer than the breweries do??? Weatherspoons make less profit per pint than any brewery owned pub does, but they make big overall profits because they sell more of it... reason being, they sell it cheaper. As for the food, ok, it may not be cordon bleu, but ham egg and chips with a pint for under a fiver is still good value. Cant be many people on here that hasnt payed nearly that for a burger and a mug of tea at the side of the road!!
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I can see where people are coming from when they talk about being able to prepare better food themselves. But sometimes, it's nice to have someone else do all the legwork. At the end of the day you are going to pay for what you get most of the time - Weatherspoons is cheap and therefore the food isn't going to be the best. I have quite happily had lunch meals and the occasional meal out with friends. But for a proper dining experience, it's not somewhere I would choose
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Unfortunately, I can't drink enough beer to keep them all in business :-( :rollin
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How can weatherspoons have a better buying power of beer than the breweries do??? Weatherspoons make less profit per pint than any brewery owned pub does, but they make big overall profits because they sell more of it... reason being, they sell it cheaper.
I thought they bought surplus production stock nearing its 'best by' date on the cheap. A lot of people have told me that, but they don't seem know how they know, so it might be an urban myth. Can anyone enlighten?
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On the pub front, Wetherspoons can do cheap because of there buying power when it comes to stock.
How can weatherspoons have a better buying power of beer than the breweries do??? Weatherspoons make less profit per pint than any brewery owned pub does, but they make big overall profits because they sell more of it... reason being, they sell it cheaper. As for the food, ok, it may not be cordon bleu, but ham egg and chips with a pint for under a fiver is still good value. Cant be many people on here that hasnt payed nearly that for a burger and a mug of tea at the side of the road!!
I heard that wetherspoons got their ale cheap as it was nearing end of life and had to be shifted quickly but I don't know if it's true or not.
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Even if its true, they do shift it quick so its kind of irellevent. The point im trying to make is, Manns, Marstons, Green King, Whitbreads etc all had their own breweries and their own pubs, but still had to close loads of them down as they got greedy, where as Weatherspoons ( who have to buy their beer in) is booming because they make less profit but on a large scale... better to sell 10 pints at 1.99 than 4 pints at £3.80!!!
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I would think most pubs are tenanted. That is a private individual buys the lease and is then fixed in to buy the beer off the brewery at any price they choose.
So the landlord of a local pub selling say 10 barrels a week gets one price while a company like Weatherspoons go to the brewery and say we'll take 500 a week, whats your best price?
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With regards to the smoking ban, I started using pubs again when it came in!!
I liked the fact that I didn't come out with my clothes reeking of fag smoke even when we were sitting in the supposed "non-smoking" section...
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I would think most pubs are tenanted. That is a private individual buys the lease and is then fixed in to buy the beer off the brewery at any price they choose.
So the landlord of a local pub selling say 10 barrels a week gets one price while a company like Weatherspoons go to the brewery and say we'll take 500 a week, whats your best price?
Nearly all tenanted pubs are leased from the breweries, ie, they are selling their own beer to their own tenants for a set price. If they werent so greedy they could sell it to them for the same price they sell it to anyone else.
I had a MANNS pub for 17 years yet my brother who has a Free house could buy MANNS beer cheaper than I could. I had to pay MANNS the lease for the pub,could only sell their beer (or beer brought through them Fosters, Bulmers etc) and pay extra for the privilege of selling it for them!!
A lot of pubs are now managed, (the landlord gets a set wage instead of the profits), hence a lot of pubs are now shit, the landlord gets a fixed wage no matter if he is busy or not, has a contract for 5 years or so then leaves for the next bloke to try his luck.
Why waste time and money making your pub nice and working hard if youre only gonna get the same money???
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On the pub front, Wetherspoons can do cheap because of there buying power when it comes to stock.
How can weatherspoons have a better buying power of beer than the breweries do??? Weatherspoons make less profit per pint than any brewery owned pub does, but they make big overall profits because they sell more of it... reason being, they sell it cheaper. As for the food, ok, it may not be cordon bleu, but ham egg and chips with a pint for under a fiver is still good value. Cant be many people on here that hasnt payed nearly that for a burger and a mug of tea at the side of the road!!
I heard that wetherspoons got their ale cheap as it was nearing end of life and had to be shifted quickly but I don't know if it's true or not.
Spot on simonn.
Doddsie, I see where you are coming from too.
My boss has taken on a hotel, in the posh end you get superb quality food where everything is made fresh in the kitchen. Then in the bar you can get a home made burger,chips hand cut double fried and salad plus any one drink for 5 quid, also in the bar you get the same offer on steak pie, fish etc. the busiest place is the posh end !!!!!
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On the m25 now, just passed a sign saying " pussy outrageous " how feckin much does it cost !?
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iv,e heard the owner of witherspoons wear,s a white helmet, and is called the stig. :lol
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Tim Martin, clever bastard from Ireland.... the name JD Weatherspoon comes from one of his teachers who told him he was a useless twat!!!!
Bet he loves school reunions!!! ;)
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There are a few reasons pubs are shutting but the main driver is the price difference between pubs and supermarkets. If there was less financial incentive to getting loaded on tinnies and vodka before a night out then I'd assume, like in the past, people would go out for a drink. Why not introduce minimum pricing for supermarkets and drop the tax on alcohol served in pubs?
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I'll sit here and munch on my full English brekkie at wetherspoons for £3.19.
If they sell decent cheap beer and have beer and a burger and a traditional breakfast on the menu then they will come :-P
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Well I'll be doing my bit to keep the pubs going later on today!
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Top man :thumbup have one for me and I'll have one for you :)
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We'll have to try the Weatherspoons down Rochester High St one night!