What would lure you back to the bars?

jdivision

If this crowd had opened on Capel Street in the end it would have had a huge impact:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2009/jan/02/jdwetherspoon-mitchellsandbutlers
JD Wetherspoon is to sharpen its offering from Monday when it is to reduce the price of five drinks across its estate (Greene King IPA for 99p a pint, for example) and offer five different meals at all times for £2.99 per meal.

With sterling the way it is that's essentially two pints and dinner for E5, that'd get people back into the pubs

Hail 2 Da Chimp

I'm surprised more pubs don't give free drinks to the regulars, say every 5th pint free. It's not going to cost the pub very much but it would guarantee people stay there longer and punters would be more inclined to come back...
Also friendly bar staff / door staff. I'm sick of being practically thrown out of the pub once last orders have been called.

abouttobebanned

Hail 2 Da Chimp wrote: »

I'm surprised more pubs don't give free drinks to the regulars, say every 5th pint free. It's not going to cost the pub very much but it would guarantee people stay there longer and punters would be more inclined to come back...
Also friendly bar staff / door staff. I'm sick of being practically thrown out of the pub once last orders have been called.

would that not be illegal - encouraging binge drinking

Hail 2 Da Chimp

I don't see how it would be illegal as they're giving it away for free. Unless it could be banned the way most of the drink promotions have been?
Example: I didn't get 1 Christmas drink from my local pubs. My group of friends got so pissed off with our local last year we boycotted the place for about 4 months. So I think giving away the odd free drink and bar men actually being friendly / professional would have avoided that whole situation. It gives the punters a sense of loyalty, I suppose, to where they drink.

Biggins

deadhead13 wrote: »

End smoking ban.

Just for the record in regards to second-hand smoke:

American Government-funded researchers have revealed that a smoking ban in a Colorado city has led to a 41% reduction in heart attack hospitalization over the past three years, which they claim is evidence of how serious a health risk second-hand smoke is. The ban, which stopped workplace smoking, took place in Pueblo, CO. Researchers compared heart attack rates in Pueblo to other surrounding areas and noticed that just Pueblo saw a drop. Researchers contend that the ban is responsible for the decline.
While other studies have linked smoking bans to fewer heart attacks, no study has ran as long. One critic said that the study isn't proof enough of the decline, saying that a general decline of smoking in the city over the years may be responsible.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-12-31-smoking-heart_N.htm


No. I wouldn't like to see smoking return to the bar business for many reasons.

Rowley Birkin QC

Anyone been to the Players Lounge in Fairview lately? Only recently opened after refurbishment.

It's an out and out sports bar with about 50 gajillion flat screens of varying size, fantastic for Saturday/Sunday boozing with the lads. Barman are highly professional, pints dropped to the table, as far as I remember the prices were reasonable and the doormen were inconspicuous.

Easily the busiest pub I have gone to in months, full of families, kids watching cartoons in one of the snugs and lads watching sports.

The owner identified his market and tailor made the pub around that = busy bar.

SoupyNorman

Correctly trained bar men/women. Bar staff used to train in apprenticeships before working in bars, now obviously thats an extreme these days but even basic training and quality control would be better then a spotty little pipsqueak firing sloppy pints at you and asking....."Wadda ya Wan"?

Capt'n Midnight

Holsten wrote: »

Another one would be a games night, either a few board games or video games.

A few consoles running games of Fifa would get loads of lads in.

http://www.irish-go.org/clubs-tournaments/Dublin/
Collegians Go Club meets in Larry Murphy’s on the corner of Baggot Street and Fitzwilliam Street. N.B. The club no longer meets in the Pembroke Inn.

The club meets on Monday and Wednesday evenings (except Bank-holiday Mondays) from about 8:30/9:00 onwards.

Dyr

there's a sign ouside the porterhouse north which claims that studies show that men who stay at home die younger so come in and have a pint ..you'll live longer :eek:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Bambi wrote: »

there's a sign ouside the porterhouse north which claims that studies show that men who stay at home die younger so come in and have a pint ..you'll live longer :eek:

Best Sign I saw was in the window of a pub in Ranelagh (I think Russell's)
"TV muted while neightbours make love"

jdivision

Hail 2 Da Chimp wrote: »

I don't see how it would be illegal as they're giving it away for free. Unless it could be banned the way most of the drink promotions have been?

Who've persuaded people to stop drink promotions? An organisation called MEAS (mature enjoyment of alcohol in society). Who are its members?

Beamish & Crawford plc
C&C Group plc
Diageo Ireland
Drinks Industry Group of Ireland
Edward Dillon & Co. Ltd
Heineken Ireland
InBev Ireland
Irish Distillers Ltd
Licensed Vintners Association
Vintners' Federation of Ireland

So basically the companies that make the drink or import it found a way to keep drink prices higher!!

kingofburt

Why are so many people praising Wetherspoons? If they had set up in Ireland they would have been the same as every other UK chain and adjusted prices to reflect our higher wages, rents, taxes, etc so a 99p beer would prob be €4 anyway. On a side note their pubs in Belfast and Derry are not frequented by the most socialable people.

BoB_BoT

Zebra3 wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/03/one-pound-pub-lunch-deals

A place in Athlone tried €5 lunches, when you'd pay a minimum €9/10 elsewhere. It bombed. The food was nice, was in there quite a few times myself, but it had no real atmosphere during the day. TVs everywhere, though it did have two pool tables, good music at night, but the rent crippled it.

I saw this when a publican asked me to scan and print it for her (not sure from what paper/publication) but still have the scan. The breakdown of a pint sold at €4 according to this picture,

Government €1.16
Brewery €1.14
Wages and PRSI €0.52
Utilities, rates, insurance, repairs, waste €0.41.
Entertainment and Professional... €0.33
Other costs €0.15
Publican Net Profit/Rent €0.29.

So you really do have to ask, where can they cut the price of a pint?

Sabre0001

galwayrush wrote: »

Seriously, a good Rock Bar would help, if i could pick the music.

Only been in Bruxelles (Dublin) once but the Rock / Metal part had a jukebox - 2euro for 5 songs - and a good selection (i.e. Actually had rock and metal tracks rather than just the chart / 80s stuff). And the music was at a decent level so you could still comfortably chat to people and order a drink.

dSTAR

niceirishfella wrote: »

Cant Believe no one has said this ;

FREE BEER!

Its a no brainer really. I was in some local boozer in Bendigo in Country Victoria recently. The first round of drinks was free. So I happily put my money in my pocket and sat down. Within 15 minutes a waitress brought a plate of canapes to our table which consisted of small party pies, dim sims and spring rolls. We had planned on going out for dinner but decided to stay in the pub a little longer than expected because of the free drinks and food.

Introducing gambling machines, dart boards and pole dancers is just going to turn the pub into one of those tacky pubs you see in England. It may pull in a few extra punters for a short while but they are most likely the kinds of old codgers that will spend the whole night perving at the pole dancers or intent on wasting their entire weeks dole money in one night on those stupid frickin pokie machines.

TestTransmission

Holsten wrote: »

Another one would be a games night, either a few board games or video games.

A few consoles running games of Fifa would get loads of lads in.

abouttobebanned wrote: »

I find it hard to picture the whole computer games in bars thing...could that really work?!

galwayrush wrote: »

I think the computer thing could work.
Here's my wishlist.
3 levels, silent, occasional music and a live band area.
Good food available at all hours.
Computer games area with pool etc, probably in occasional music area.
Vast beer menu.

Galvasean wrote: »

A lot of bars in America and on the continent have video game machines. I don't mean an Xbox hooked up in the corner, but these things:

This bar i worked in about 5/6 years ago had 4 xbox set up actually,it did get an initial crowd but after about 2/3 months the novelty wore off and we ended up taking them away.

steph1

One other reason why pubs are empty during the week and especially in rural areas is the fact that people have to go to work the next morning which for the majority means driving. So a lot of people dont go out anymore during the week as they have a fear of being randomly breath-tested the 'morning after the night before'.

dSTAR

Pub and bar owners need to put the social back into socializing. A couple of ways they could do this would be to organize an over 30's or 40's night, singles nights or even speed dating. It doesn't have to be all about drinking. It could be just hooking up with locals in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. And it you get lucky at the end of the night its a bonus

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

steph1 wrote: »

One other reason why pubs are empty during the week and especially in rural areas is the fact that people have to go to work the next morning which for the majority means driving. So a lot of people dont go out anymore during the week as they have a fear of being randomly breath-tested the 'morning after the night before'.

This may be a point: perhaps the publicans need to be targeting the non-drinkers, or prividing some sort of 'angle' other than alcohol.

Xbox is fine, but you can round up your mates, get in a few six-packs and do it at home for a fraction of the cost.

Blazer

Georgeous girl behind the counter promising me knockout sex everytime I visited.
Pint->Cig->Sex->Cig->Pint

Zebra3

kingofburt wrote: »

Why are so many people praising Wetherspoons? If they had set up in Ireland they would have been the same as every other UK chain and adjusted prices to reflect our higher wages, rents, taxes, etc so a 99p beer would prob be €4 anyway. On a side note their pubs in Belfast and Derry are not frequented by the most socialable people.

Those places are so soulless it's unreal. McDonald's-esque places serving alcohol.

Sleepy

Zebra3 wrote: »

Those places are so soulless it's unreal. McDonald's-esque places serving alcohol.

go with a big enough / good enough crowd of mates and you'll have a great night anywhere. Especially if that anywhere sells cheap booze...

partyatmygaff

Can't imagine how a bar would survive on anything under €4 a pint unless it was busy 7 days a week (Never gonna happen). Overheads are huge in all the hospitality industry and unless you run a business in that industry you will never know the true cost of a pint.


That said shots of all kinds are very overpriced at €4.

monkey9

I haven't stopped going to bars!!

jester77

Closing times are a joke.

Was back in Ireland over xmas, headed out around 10 and after only a few drinks they stop serving. Almost not worth going out at all!

ntlbell

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Can't imagine how a bar would survive on anything under €4 a pint unless it was busy 7 days a week (Never gonna happen). Overheads are huge in all the hospitality industry and unless you run a business in that industry you will never know the true cost of a pint.


That said shots of all kinds are very overpriced at €4.

Dunno about that they make 800% profit on mixers.....

bar staff wages are generally pretty low as is lounge staff....

I never came across a poor publican...

there's pubs in ireland that do 3e pints of guiness all the time if some can i can't see why others cant

they dont charge 6e for a guiness in cafe en seine because the staff their are on crazy wages they do it cause the morons will pay it

pubs could seriously reduce the prices and survive with little or no problem with a small amount of reg's and one or two good nights a week and if they dropped the prices they would get it

partyatmygaff

shots and mixers are where the moneys at, pints are only sold because the owner has to, it makes little profit. Most staff in pubs arent on crazy wages but theres alot of staff and it all adds up.

ntlbell

partyatmygaff wrote: »

shots and mixers are where the moneys at, pints are only sold because the owner has to, it makes little profit. Most staff in pubs arent on crazy wages but theres alot of staff and it all adds up.

dunno about that i've worked in pubs making 420e a keg

i wouldn't be sniffing at that...

take 16/32 taps doing doing x amount of kegs at 420e a keg....

where do i sign up..

Capt'n Midnight

BoB_BoT wrote:

I saw this when a publican asked me to scan and print it for her (not sure from what paper/publication) but still have the scan. The breakdown of a pint sold at €4 according to this picture,

Government €1.16
Brewery €1.14
Wages and PRSI €0.52
Utilities, rates, insurance, repairs, waste €0.41.
Entertainment and Professional... €0.33
Other costs €0.15
Publican Net Profit/Rent €0.29.

So you really do have to ask, where can they cut the price of a pint?

The music industry trots out figures like this all the time , some of it is creative accounting.

Brewery €1.14 - not much they can do here
Government €1.16 (at 21% €0.69 of this is VAT so excise is only €0.45 - haven't found the exact rates on revenue.ie yet. )

So if a pub was to sell a pint at cost it would be ( €1.14 + €0.45 ) + 21% = €1.92
And yet they only make €0.29 profit on a €4 pint

maybe they should stop giving pubs makeovers every few years ?

also the brewerys 1.14 is vastly more than the cost of a pint , by a factor of at lest 10


If pubs want to convince me that they aren't money-grabbers then they will have to reduce the price on soft drinks. Having a 100% markup on alcoholic drinks is bad enough but the price of these has driven me to drink on occasions. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Also if I have to raise my voice above the music then I also assume it's done to stop talking to encourge people to drink more.

Hermy

It may already have been mentioned but wouldn't it be nice if pubs served a nice pint - most don't and then they wonder why their sales are down.