Viewing 31 posts - 1 through 31 (of 31 total)
  • "The Local": Will there always be one?
  • cfinnimore
    Free Member

    So, being Sub-30 I’m half the average age of my local pubs residents and it’s got me wondering:

    It seems you either “get it” or you don’t, the wisdom & experience & undiluted lives well lived found in pubs. Looking back, in many times of hardship, the silent company of a half and community “spirit” has been my only salvation.

    With that in mind, as long as there’s people, will there be pubs?

    aP
    Free Member

    I rather think they’re dying off, unless you like drinking with hipsters or crackers.
    Our, very local, local is like all pubs finding it tough, I rather suspect that in the next year there’ll be a move for a community purchase and running of it. A group of us were talking about it at the weekend, actually.

    tomhoward
    Full Member

    All the traditional drinking pubs round where I grew up, when it was all fields etc, are all now trying to be posh gastrorestapubs that happen to occasionally sell a pint of beer (for £5+ a pint i might add!). It seems that peoples social lives have become very insular and, well, anti social.

    cfinnimore
    Free Member

    “What you doing tonight?”
    “Watching Lillehammer on Netflix drinking my Brewdog!”

    Rather than:

    “Talking to Gypsy Rod about that time when something familiar & relatable to happened”.

    It’s my generation that’s doing it and it’s bloody rubbish. The Nicholson group et al seem to present themselves as “saviours of the real pub” but their establishments are as vapid as the rest.

    badnewz
    Free Member

    Dying out it pains me to say. Once the old geezers pop it in my local that is it.

    jota180
    Free Member

    People simply have an awful lot more leisure opportunities now.

    Drinking and driving is now completely unacceptable to most people, going back no more than 20 years it was regarded as a bit naughty but OK if you didn’t over do it.

    shifter
    Free Member

    Last Wednesday in my local the customers petered out until there was just me and my mate; two of us. We both agreed it was time to pull the place down and build some houses 🙁

    Northwind
    Full Member

    I don’t really have a local… We have local pubs but they’re all just football and codgers. It’s not that anyone else is unwelcome, it’s just that it’ll never be their local, it’ll just be a pub that they go to sometimes.

    uselesshippy
    Free Member

    There’ll always be pubs, but the “locals” days are numbered. Shame.

    ratherbeintobago
    Full Member

    Drinking and driving is now completely unacceptable to most people,

    This is what did it, in the same way it did for the post work pint.

    jodafett
    Full Member

    Locals are dying out (I’m in plenty of them every day with my job). @tomhoward posh gastro pubs are where the money is, pubs without kitchens are really dying out. You can improve a plate of food to attract customers but a good pint can’t be improved much.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    ALive and well ’round these parts. One of the reasons I moved back to WOrcestershire.

    I was brought up to consider our local pub as our social club. In my local its where we swap stories, services, produce, support.

    In our local in the last few months, off the top of my head:

    1) I have been given two hot smoked trout for me to make a pate
    2) I have fitted a new radiator for a DB*
    3) I have let a DB take my wife’s car for a few days to test, now she will buy it off us.
    4) A DB’s son (and a DB of us all) killed himself, huge amounts of support
    5) I have passed on my dad’s old hedge trimmer to a DB
    6) I have given some over-spec plasterboard to the landlord (rather than scrap it)
    7) I will be picking a DB’s perry pears on Wednesday so the two of us can make some perry
    8) My wife’s new car will probably come from a work friend of a DB
    9) Im doing some pro-bono Chartered Surveying-ish stuff for a DB next week

    etc etc
    Most parts of my life are touched by my friends from the Plume of Feathers at some point or other.

    Some people get similar from their church, and in cities it’s probably a lot harder to do there than here. But I couldnt live without having a good local.

    *Drinking Buddy

    33tango
    Full Member

    The Smoking ban was the kick when it was writhing on the ground.

    Daisy_Duke
    Free Member

    The good ones doin’ ok, the less than perfect finding it tough. My local is real busy. Manages to get the balance right between awesome beer and great food. It’s a tough business but they seem to be doing good. Don’t want to think about the number of hours they work.

    crispo
    Free Member

    OP where about’s are you?

    We seem to be having a real revival of good pubs around us at the moment (Lancashire). Granted a lot are doing top food too but all still welcoming as a local too. I think they’re realising a good bar gives a pub a good atmosphere!

    +1 what stoner said, know a few guys just met through the pub and all willing to lend a cement mixer or whatever is required!!

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Funny, I don’t recognise any of these descriptions as pertaining to my ‘local’, although a lot of pubs have closed. The pub I use is around five miles from where I live, due to the fact that the mate I drink with lives quite some way from any pub, so we take it in turns to drive, although we both still have a couple of pints, and feel no guilt over it either.
    There are several pubs within walking distance which are doing ok, and two top-notch CAMRA real ale pubs in town, one a recent conversion, and the other very well established, and third is well used by the local folkies for live music.
    My ‘local’ had some issues, and closed for a while a bit over eighteen months ago, but it was bought up and a young-ish couple taken over the running who had previous experience in a pub a few miles away. They’re doing great things with the food and beer, getting CAMRA involved, and hoping to expand the pumps from three to four, at the moment they have one constant, for some of the locals, one regional, which is currently Tribute, and one national, which has just changed to London a Pride.
    It’s not going to hurt that Sky TV are filming a comedy drama in the village, and the pub will feature quite strongly, with its real name, not the name used in the series of books on which the programme is based.

    cfinnimore
    Free Member

    Word @ Stoner

    aracer
    Free Member

    Most parts of my life are touched by my friends from the Plume of Feathers at some point or other.

    That is quite an unusual pub though – lots of total strangers chatted even to somebody as unsocial as me in there when I was last in. I wish it was my local as even in Worcestershire most pubs aren’t like that.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    Depends where you look aracer . The farmers arms and the Duke of York are similar and I regularly use them too. The Wellington over the Ledbury side of the hill is another good one. And what about the brewers arms on the top Road?

    luke
    Free Member

    I don’t frequent pubs that often anymore, I used to have several locals and very good lines of credit behind the bar, always paid up on pay day, I had a pewter mug hung over the bar in two pubs as well, no need to ask what I wanted as they knew.
    But now I hardly ever drink so most visits are due to having a meal, I probably go drinking three to four times a year without it being a food related trip.
    I have a good pub in the village and another not so good, both have there share of regulars but neither could survive without the food element.

    Klunk
    Free Member

    we used to have a local(ish) but the landlord decided he didn’t like bikes in the garden.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    When I was 17-20 pubs were the life blood of my social life. 20+ years later we stay in with a nice bottle of wine and watch Scandinavian crime dramas. Can’t recall the last time I went to a pub in Cambridge, must be years….

    slowoldman
    Full Member

    Whilst I don’t have a local as such (i.e just round the corner) there are several independents I frequent nearby. Some with their own micro breweries.

    Drac
    Full Member

    On a slow pick up around here, died right off for a few years. New one opened up a few months ago which is Ok and another is due to open back up after being shut a few years. They’re different to what they were but for the better, quality beers being sold more rather then one pump on a bar full of beer and lager flavoured alcopops.

    binners
    Full Member

    Locals around our way (Lancashire like crispo) are still going strong. We’ve got a number within a quick stroll. I think its the crap pubs, that thoroughly deserved to close down, that have gone.

    Theres still plenty of room for a decent old school pub. My local still does all the things that you’d expect them to do in’th’olden days. Bowling club (its got a green out the back), darts team, pool team, us lot turning up covered in mud after night rides. etc, which mean its busy most nights of the week. And not just with miserable cantankerous old gits (of which I am one) moaning about stuff. Though there is plenty of that too 😀

    Theres something comforting about walking into a place and knowing pretty much everyone in there, and the landlord is already pouring your ‘usual’ as you get to the bar

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    I’m heading to mine now (oz) it’s a trendy craft beer bar that opened in January and has been full ever since, it passes my good pub test in that you can go in by yourself and find yourself with friends. It’s great.

    Woody
    Free Member

    There are 2 ‘proper’ pubs and a bar/restaurant within easy walking distance of my house, which is in a small’ish village. I rarely drink in any of the pubs as I’m not keen on the clientele of one and the other has gone seriously downhill recently, due largely (IMO) to a very greedy brewery and appears to rely on televised football and an previous reputation for good food.

    The bar/restaurant on the other hand is brilliant. Restaurant tucked away at the back, meat sourced and prepared by the co-owner who happens to be a butcher, nice courtyard and even nicer huge beer garden and a minimum 3 local real ales at the pumps at £2.70-£2.80 a pint. Clientele is from all walks of life and all very friendly. It’s ace 😀

    cfinnimore
    Free Member

    Culture and Class are two very different things.

    For those who asked, Edinburgh here.

    franki
    Free Member

    All the pubs I’d set foot in near me, have closed down – so no local here. 🙁
    It’s either a very long walk or bus / taxi ride to any half decent boozer.

    lunge
    Full Member

    Round my way the good ones are doing very well indeed, whilst the less good ones really struggle. The Duke William and the Waggon and Horse are both doing well, they serve good beer and other drinks (the former brews its own), they are welcoming and they are full of good staff and clientèle. Neither serve food but both are happy for you to bring your own in.

    Contrast this to The Crispin and The Swan, both of whom sold average beer to idiots and need door staff to keep people safe. One is now closed, the other has just reopened and I’d be surprised if it lasts until Xmas.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    Problem with local pubs near me is that they’re half-filled with numpties who have spent six hours a day at the pub for the last ten years and whose brains have half dissolved from booze.

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