Reason behind the death of the Irish Pub

smash

Rabidlamb wrote: »

(4) Branded beers for below €1 a bottle in supermarkets, nobody could justify paying 5 times the cost in a pub.

For me that's pretty much it... how much is Carlsberg now in a bar? Because it's €1 a can in off licenses. And 8 can's of Heineken is only €12.

finisklin

previous user wrote: »

Did somebody mention a while back that a Hooters was opening up down
in Cork or thereabouts?

Now you have my attention.....

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

mvt wrote: »

Its not a tax on beer its setting a minimum price for the sale of alcohol.Theres's a big difference.And the daily carnage on our streets and in our A & E's would suggest this is an idea worth thinking about.

The carnage is hardly a result of home drinking with a 6 pack and FIFA11 or a movie.

Here#s a weird novel idea for the goernment if they want to crack down on underage drinksing: enforce the laws that already exist.

si_guru

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

.. enforce the laws that already exist.

Have you been drinking?

Sadly we all know that will never happen - and it breaks my heart to have to say that.

Seat belts, road tax, mobile phones while driving, etc...

Degag

Jaysoose wrote: »

Racist? probably not.. Complete nonsense? definitely.

Explain?

Laisurg

Wile E. Coyote wrote: »

I have to say, some pubs are starting to cop on though. Was at home a few weeks ago and one pub was doing a deal, 6 bottles of beer and 2 shots for €20.

20 bottles of miller in tesco, 15 euro.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

si_guru wrote: »

Have you been drinking?

Sadly we all know that will never happen - and it breaks my heart to have to say that.

Seat belts, road tax, mobile phones while driving, etc...

That's exactly my point, Watson.

mikemac

Even with all the pub closures I've wondered why Wetherspoons never had a go in the Republic.
They're in Enniskillen and Belfast, I've eaten in both and was happy, nice and cheap.

A lot don't like them but it's another option and choice is good.
Plus they've a better selection of wines then most Irish pubs

mikemac

mikemac wrote: »

Even with all the pub closures I've wondered why Wetherspoons never had a go in the Republic.
They're in Enniskillen and Belfast, I've eaten in both and was happy, nice and cheap.

A lot don't like them but it's another option and choice is good.
Plus they've a better selection of wines then most Irish pubs

They tried to come in a while back were looking to put one where the man utd shop is. They were not granted a licence in the South if i remember correctly as all the pub owners gathered together against them.

flas

southsiderosie wrote: »

It's not just the tea/coffee issue (although most of the coffee in Irish pubs is ****e anyway). A place isn't just a cafe because they serve coffee. It's a place you go where you can have drinks, not to go to have drinks. I think that's the key difference, and why the dynamics of cafes and pubs are so different (although continental drinking culture is quite different anyway).

most coffee in coffee shops here is sh!te too! and i have never gone into a pub and felt like i HAVE to have drinks,like you implied in your post!? if thats the case i would not drink in the pubs you have been to.

continental drinking culture is not that different at all, not in the many many number of european countries i have been in, and im not talking about tourist traps, im on about places where family and friends live or have lived. the locals would all be pissed en masse at least once a week. if you want to take another continent into it, south america they have beers with their food in cafe type places aswell, they also dance in the streets at the drop of a hat and drink beer the whole time. but you know what else i have found in these places? they also have drunken violence! shock horror, it does not just exsist here in Ireland! what im saying is Ireland is not unique in that people drink too much! it happens everywhere and people seem to look at continental europe through rose tinted glasses!

i have visited a friend in madrid a good few times, he was studying and working over there, do you know what he warned me about on the first night out? no matter where we go to keep an eye on my wallet in my pocket at all times, that pick pocketing is absolutely rife over there on nights out, that every girl he knows has had their hand bag stolen at some point or other, both foreign students and locals aswell, it was the locals in his class who had warned him and all the other students about it.

Minstrel27

previous user wrote: »

Did somebody mention a while back that a Hooters was opening up down
in Cork or thereabouts?

IIRC that was someone's college course and it turned out to be false. Besides Hooters reputation is unwarranted

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

Had some of my best work outs after a couple of Guinness. I don't know why!

Tubsandtiles wrote: »

And before aswell ?

Spunge

Bambi wrote: »

And then this state nanny c**t weighs in:

http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-should-the-government-set-a-minimum-price-for-alcohol-188252-Jul2011/

subsidise bikes and tax beer.

"He added this would help combat underage and problem drinking as well as anti-social behaviour"

LOOOOOOOOL

the bolt

mikemac wrote: »

Even with all the pub closures I've wondered why Wetherspoons never had a go in the Republic.
They're in Enniskillen and Belfast, I've eaten in both and was happy, nice and cheap.

A lot don't like them but it's another option and choice is good.
Plus they've a better selection of wines then most Irish pubs

i hate them with a passion,when i ran a pub in london they had one 2 minutes walk up the road from me which i used to call into now and again.souless places,non smoking at the bar(this was in the late 90s up till 2ooo)no juke box,a few of the cheaper real ales that i wouldnt wash my feet in.for all that i was selling becks,bud and the like for a fiver a pop the were selling them for £1.horses for courses.i now live in balbriggan this last 4 years and the barman or staff would not know my name yet i call into a pub in rural roscommom that i first was interduced to about the same time yet the owner would know my name,what i drank and would see i got home ok if i had 1 over the 8,yet he might only see me 1 week of the year if that.i can give you the name of the pub if anybody wants it.he might even throw up a round once in a while:D

The Marlboro Man

Yeah, the publicans (and government) are still charging Celtic Tiger prices. It beggers belief. Are we really that fúcking stupid?? Hello, we're bankrupt. Wakey! Wakey!

The Irish Pub is an institution, seeing in every corner of the world. We need to promote and retain it..

Alcohol prices in Ireland 'dearest' in Europe.

Updated: 17:40, Thursday, 30 June 2011 Link http://www.rte.ie/news/money/consumer/alcohol-prices-in-ireland-dearest-in-europe.html


The cost of alcohol in Ireland is higher than anywhere in Europe as is the cost of tobacco, it has emerged.


Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, has also revealed that the price of eating out and staying in hotels was the third highest in Europe, just behind Denmark and Sweden and on a par with Finland.


And the cost of cars, bicycles and motorbikes is also the third highest in Europe, behind Denmark and Portugal.


But on the plus side, the cost of clothing and personal electronics was below the European average, but only just. It is still cheaper to buy clothing and personal electronics in the UK.


However overall, Ireland is the fifth most expensive country in Europe for consumer goods and services. Greece, another bailout country, was below average in cost.


The cheapest place for alcohol and cigarettes was Bulgaria and Romania and Albania is, unsurprisingly, cheap on most items.


Eurostat took prices for 2010 from 27 countries and says the high price of alcohol and tobacco in Ireland is “mostly” down to Irish tax.


The high cost of the hotels will be a blow to the tourism industry which has been promoting Irish holidays as better value than ever.


The full Eurostat figures can be seen here http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=STAT/11/95&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Cill Dara Abu

Was in Quinns in Dublin last week before the Kildare match and I bought a pint of Budweiser (€4.70 :O) and it was disgusting, I could not drink it, it was horrible.

ted1

Charging fifty quid on new years 2000 people had house parties and the trend continued. Also poker pubs , whew each time you go to the bar they see your last pint and raise you.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Cill Dara Abu wrote: »

Was in Quinns in Dublin last week before the Kildare match and I bought a pint of Budweiser (€4.70 :O) and it was disgusting, I could not drink it, it was horrible.

That was probably down to it being Bud rather than the pub. 4.70 though? ****...

So. Pubs are not value for money and more. Answers the OP's question, slash thread.

wolf moon

A pint of Guinness in a local offie - 1.66e
A pint of Guinness in my local pub - 4,80

Price for 6:

Off Licence - 10e
Local pub - 28.8e

achmairt

I think we are all Americanised since Michael McDowell allowed every shop and petrol station to sell beer. Gone is the Irish pub with the atmosphere the tourists are looking for in vain. Instead we have twenty somethings getting totally wasted and puking out drink in the pub toilets - that they drank at home. Why not stay at home and puke there?? The publican has to clean up after them and keeping people under control which is the duty of the Garda.

recylingbin

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

NOT EVERYONE IN THE PUP HAS AN INTEREST IN FOOTBALL.

Agreed.
Most Unionists would be more interested in rugger, in my experience.

saywhatyousee

I can get a double morgan spice and coke in Sligo for 4.20 or 1.75 for a bottle of heineken or 4.50 for 2 jagermeister's and red bull.(these are not promotional prices by the way)Pint for 3.Nobody buys them when yo can get a double and split for 4

southsiderosie

flas wrote: »

continental drinking culture is not that different at all, not in the many many number of european countries i have been in, and im not talking about tourist traps, im on about places where family and friends live or have lived. the locals would all be pissed en masse at least once a week. if you want to take another continent into it, south america they have beers with their food in cafe type places aswell, they also dance in the streets at the drop of a hat and drink beer the whole time. but you know what else i have found in these places? they also have drunken violence! shock horror, it does not just exsist here in Ireland! what im saying is Ireland is not unique in that people drink too much! it happens everywhere and people seem to look at continental europe through rose tinted glasses!

Sorry, I'm calling bull**** on that. I've lived in Spain, and while people drink a lot, 1) it's generally with food, and 2) it tends to stay good-natured. Over eight months of living in Madrid, I saw ONE fight after a night of going out drinking - and I went out three or four nights a week. And alcohol is far more readily available there than in Ireland - cafe/bars serve at 8am, the wine and beer is VERY cheap, and most locals won't close until 3am on the weekends. In my old office, there was even beer in the cafeteria vending machine, and people would have one with their lunch.

Another difference is that while young people get ****faced, it is very rare to see men in their 30s and 40s who are absolutely hammered at 10pm - and when you do, they are almost inevitably tourists. And to see a Spanish woman over the age of thirty who is off her face is as rare as hen's teeth.

flas wrote: »

i have visited a friend in madrid a good few times, he was studying and working over there, do you know what he warned me about on the first night out? no matter where we go to keep an eye on my wallet in my pocket at all times, that pick pocketing is absolutely rife over there on nights out, that every girl he knows has had their hand bag stolen at some point or other, both foreign students and locals aswell, it was the locals in his class who had warned him and all the other students about it.

What does pickpocketing have to do with pub culture?

Faith+1

wolf moon wrote: »

A pint of Guinness in a local offie - 1.66e
A pint of Guinness in my local pub - 4,80

Price for 6:

Off Licence - 10e
Local pub - 28.8e

So long Dental Plan!!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

flas wrote: »

most coffee in coffee shops here is sh!te too! and i have never gone into a pub and felt like i HAVE to have drinks,like you implied in your post!? if thats the case i would not drink in the pubs you have been to.

continental drinking culture is not that different at all, not in the many many number of european countries i have been in, and im not talking about tourist traps, im on about places where family and friends live or have lived. the locals would all be pissed en masse at least once a week. if you want to take another continent into it, south america they have beers with their food in cafe type places aswell, they also dance in the streets at the drop of a hat and drink beer the whole time. but you know what else i have found in these places? they also have drunken violence! shock horror, it does not just exsist here in Ireland! what im saying is Ireland is not unique in that people drink too much! it happens everywhere and people seem to look at continental europe through rose tinted glasses!

i have visited a friend in madrid a good few times, he was studying and working over there, do you know what he warned me about on the first night out? no matter where we go to keep an eye on my wallet in my pocket at all times, that pick pocketing is absolutely rife over there on nights out, that every girl he knows has had their hand bag stolen at some point or other, both foreign students and locals aswell, it was the locals in his class who had warned him and all the other students about it.

Continental drinking culture is massivel different from Irish! For one thing, people go out to socialise and not to get pissed. They can also make their own way home withotu screaming and singgin, puking up everywhere and starting fights.

What part of the continent have you been to? London?

Downlinz

I think the change in communities and people becoming less social has been the biggest impact. Pubs used to be the hub of the community, a place to meet the neighbours and hang out with friends. Nowadays I don't think people really even know most their neighbours and society as a whole is far less social.

I mean I'm 24 and don't even have a local, I'm sure that notion would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. I like most just go to bars on special occasions. The social gatherings are in peoples houses.

barone

think its because the staple user of the 'pub' was older men who would sit in the same stool and sup pints all day and night, they have all died,with it their custom.. the next generation has more options availible to them to keep them entertained, i.e the internet.. and are more health concious and finance concious then to want to spend a lot of time drinkin in the pubs etc..

to be honest the regular customer of the pub seems to me to be both unemployed and a bookie regular.. as both are usualy situated beside each other and its the same people day in day out who congregate around them smoking and drinking,

from opening time til closing.

how they can manage it is beyond me

desertcircus

Probably a combination of factors - the effect of seeing how much people in other countries pay for their drinks, the attitude those people have towards alcohol, and the sheer differential between the off-licence and the pub all come into play.

Beer in Ireland (and Dublin in particular) is more expensive than beer anywhere else in Europe with the exception of Paris (seriously, Paris prices are ruinous). What's really killing the pubs, though, is that the mass-market beers are the ones that are being sold dirt cheap. Until January, I could get six Stella Artois and a pizza from Tesco for six euro; there are places in Dublin that'd charge close to that for a single bottle. When you're drinking Carlsberg/Miller/Coors/Heineken or the like, it becomes very hard to justify spending twenty quid on four pints when you can buy six for eight euro in the shop. I think that's why the likes of the Bull and Castle, the Porterhouse and Mulligan's (as someone already pointed out) are doing well: if you've a fondness for, say, Rochefort 10, then it'll set you back 7.20 a bottle in the Porterhouse. It's 5.99 in Redmond's off-licence, though, which is the only place I've seen it. Six strange Belgian-style beers in one of the above pubs might come in at forty quid, but that compares well to the off-licence, where I could easily pay €25 - and if I was drinking four Rochefort (any more than four is not advisable) the difference between the two is just a fiver. If I was a Miller drinker, though? That stuff's been under a euro a bottle for the last six years at least, but it's four quid or more in the pub. If I was fond of Miller, I'd avoid the pub like the plague. Six bottles for thirty quid or 24 bottles and a takeaway?

Something else that's made me more likely to drink at home is the change to the Nitelink service. I don't order a drink after 10.30 on a weeknight anymore, because that one drink will cost me thirty euro if I miss the bus and have to get a taxi home. I don't meet anyone after nine on a weeknight for that reason either, so once I leave the city I'm gone for the night - I get home at six, and the earliest I'd get back in would be about half seven or eight. So if you live in the suburbs and you have to go home first, you don't tend to go out in the city afterwards. And once you're home, it's either the local or a friend's house - where the beer is off-licence priced.

I do go to pubs reasonably regularly: I go to the Porterhouse for good beer, or to the pubs around the RDS after a Leinster match, or to a pub near the office after work. But I make a point of going to the pub maybe twice a month at most.

Overheal

Pubs suck, I can buy beer at a bowling alley, or a cinema. Why would I need to buy beer at a pub anymore? You just go into a pub to get drunk. At Cinebar at least I can get drunk while I watch a new release, and I can get drunk at the bowling alley while I pretend to be family friendly.

Sonnenblumen

(12) fun atmosphere is gone and replaced by 'did someone die?'
(13) same o - same o (boring beers, boring food) served by bored foreigners
(14) very poor value
(15) mostly very poor service
(16) people are much smarter than publicans.

wolf moon

Apart from the prices:

- lets say I wanna meet with a few friends. The (mostly sh1tty, cheap disco) music is banging soo loud that I can't hear the person next to me.
- at home I can make my own drinks
- play my own music
- eat/make nice food when I'm hungry
- go to the nice, clean jacks without paddling in a sea of piss
- I am safe
- I don't have to watch knobheads/scumbags all over the place

Maybe I'm a freak but I see no pros in going to pub, honestly.

Capt'n Midnight

Rabidlamb wrote: »

I've listed some of the main factors behind the decline as I see it below, please add.

(1) The price of the pint, encroached & exceeded €5 the closer you got to Dublin. It was like a watershed for people that made them question their drinking.
(2) Replacing the splash mixer with the baby bottle, nobody likes to be gouged.
(3) High excise duties which were passed onto customer with interest.
(4) Branded beers for below €1 a bottle in supermarkets, nobody could justify paying 5 times the cost in a pub.
(5) Smoking ban, obvious enough.
(6) Crackdown & social disapproval with drink driving.
(7) The rise & rise & rise & rise of wine, perfectly suited for home drinking.
(8) Intransigence from Diageo regarding price reductions.
(9) The minimum wage.

Despite all the fuss about it the excise duty on beer hasn't changed since Janurary 1994. There are people drinking in pubs who weren't even born then.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/excise/duties/excise-duty-rates.html
15.71 per hectolitre per cent of alcohol in the beer
So for a pint of 5% excise is 44.6c

For a pint of 2.8% Guinness (the new stuff) the excise duty is just 12.5c
7.85 per hectolitre per cent of alcohol in the beer



The real rip off is on fizzy drinks, absolutely disgraceful :mad:
as long as pubs charge more for this than for similar volume alcoholc drink I'll consider them gougers, expecially when softdrinks are far cheaper in supermarkets


a pint of blackcurrant varies between free and €2.20 :eek: and in some places t's so weak it might as well be water


music / bands so loud you can't have a conversation with someone across the table without shouting, it's too loud to enjoy, it's as if they think that people can't drink and talk at the same time

DES440

Poor business sense.


My wife and I were turned away from The Church Bar on Mary St in Dublin, at 17:10 on a Sunday when we tried to go in for dinner after an afternoon shopping in town, because we had a six month old baby with us.

We would have dropped €70 on dinner for 2 and been in and out in less than an hour, but they said their policy is they don't allow children on the premises after 5. Find it a bit odd that a bar which is so food focused would refuse a couple for dinner on a Sunday cause they had a baby with them.

And then they wonder why people are staying away

DES440

Poor business sense.


My wife and I were turned away from The Church Bar on Mary St in Dublin, at 17:10 on a Sunday when we tried to go in for dinner after an afternoon shopping in town, because we had a six month old baby with us.

We would have dropped €70 on dinner for 2 and been in and out in less than an hour, but they said their policy is they don't allow children on the premises after 5. Find it a bit odd that a bar which is so food focused would refuse a couple for dinner on a Sunday cause they had a baby with them.

And then they wonder why people are staying away

Crazy Horse 6

Walk into any pub in central Dublin on any weeknight and you are confronted by sky sports news/sky news etc.. blaring from the TV. Fck sake i go to the pub to relax and chat not to watch a television.

Crazy Horse 6

DES440 wrote: »

Poor business sense.


My wife and I were turned away from The Church Bar on Mary St in Dublin, at 17:10 on a Sunday when we tried to go in for dinner after an afternoon shopping in town, because we had a six month old baby with us.

We would have dropped €70 on dinner for 2 and been in and out in less than an hour, but they said their policy is they don't allow children on the premises after 5. Find it a bit odd that a bar which is so food focused would refuse a couple for dinner on a Sunday cause they had a baby with them.

And then they wonder why people are staying away

Jesus you must work in the PS spending money like that :eek:

Ally Dick

With the smoking ban in place, you can now get poisoned with smelly farts in pubs. They used to be covered up by the cigarette smoke

JONJO THE MISER

There are a few pubs in Galway City now charging 3 Eur a pint of Guinness and there not dodgey pubs either, im more inclined on going to them instead of paying 3.80 in other pubs.

watna

I don't live in Ireland but I don't drink in pubs either really - apart from Friday night drinks after work at the pub next door to my office, which is a really nice pub that serves excellent food as well.

What we do go to a lot is BYO restaurants, I'd love to see them become big in Ireland. We generally go to one of these once, if not twice a week, eat out and get a big meal and drink a good bit of wine each and it's cheap as chips. Last week we went out to a Chinese restaurant and had this amazing Chinese hotpot thing. It cost $13 each (about 7 euro), including corkage and we all brought a bottle of wine each (which was about another $13) and it was good quality wine. How good is that?

I was home recently and I couldn't get over the price of drink in supermarkets in Ireland, I couldn't pay the prices Tesco were asking for wine when I'm used to paying so much less for better wine. I think BYO restaurants, would really take off in Ireland, if they did them properly. I'd must rather have a bottle of wine and a meal with friends instead of being in a noisy, expensive, smelly pub and I'm talking about NZ pubs there.

In saying that, while drink was a lot more expensive in the supermarket in Ireland all the food was cheaper than in NZ, which probably explains why NZ has an even worse drinking problem than Ireland. Supermarket beer and wine is so cheap and good.

mikemac

New Zealand has their own wine industry though and maybe they are getting subsidies

Any wine in Ireland is imported and has duty on it

watna

mikemac wrote: »

New Zealand has their own wine industry though and maybe they are getting subsidies

Any wine in Ireland is imported and has duty on it

Yep - it's locally made so I can understand that.

However, European beer is also a lot cheaper here, I'm presuming due to tax. I'm not saying it's a good thing either, I'd rather food was cheaper and booze more expensive, as I eat a lot more food than I drink wine :pac: (most of the time!)

tayto lover

I visited a number of pubs in my town last week and was invited to join the Golf Society in two of them. Now these Golf Societies are a real money-making and crowd-gathering bonanza for publicans. The prizes are presented in the pub that night and the golfers actually buy them because the price is included in the cost of the golf outing. A day out with golf, meal and a few pints after in the pub could set you back well over 100 euro. The publican doesn't even buy the prizes while he gets all the golfers back for drinks, none on the house. Its a gimmick. I'll play in my own club where i pay my membership and not support the greedy publicans.

Lapin

Overheal wrote: »

Pubs suck, I can buy beer at a bowling alley, or a cinema. Why would I need to buy beer at a pub anymore? You just go into a pub to get drunk. At Cinebar at least I can get drunk while I watch a new release, and I can get drunk at the bowling alley while I pretend to be family friendly.

I can watch a movie in my local.

byhookorbycrook

Rot set in when they were slapping huge cover charges for New year 2000, people stayed home and began to see how it was cheaper and no worry about trying to get a taxi.

aligator_am

Minstrel27 wrote: »

Excessive greed is what is killing the Irish pub.

Go anywhere in the world and the most expensive bar you will find is the Irish pub, it's a crock of ****e, and something that dense Irish "patriots" abroad buy in to, like the good morons that they are.

These are the same folk who will go on a "sun holiday" and spend their days sitting in a bar looking at reruns of Coronation Street from the early 1990's or possibly go out for food, and order a burger and chips, rather than try the local food.

Lady Chatterton

Blame it on the Tesco Wine Deals

Stavro Mueller

I don't go so often, partially because of the cost. What has put me off more though is the volume that music is played at in too many pubs. Don't get me wrong, I like music in pubs but it's a shame that DJs and performers don't understand that people will be able to hear them even if they don't turn the volume up to 3 trillion decibels.

the bolt

another reason for me is getting charged for 2 splashs when i order a large spirit,what is that all about.if anything i should be charged less as there is less room in the glass.

ShooterSF

DES440 wrote: »

Poor business sense.


My wife and I were turned away from The Church Bar on Mary St in Dublin, at 17:10 on a Sunday when we tried to go in for dinner after an afternoon shopping in town, because we had a six month old baby with us.

We would have dropped €70 on dinner for 2 and been in and out in less than an hour, but they said their policy is they don't allow children on the premises after 5. Find it a bit odd that a bar which is so food focused would refuse a couple for dinner on a Sunday cause they had a baby with them.

And then they wonder why people are staying away

Just on this I don't know the pub but I have worked in ones where my Sunday regulars would not be Sunday regulars very long if children were allowed in. A lot of people go to the pub to get away from kids and they drop a good bit of money every week which at least in places like that would be good business sense for the pub in the longterm to refuse you (sorry! nothing personal, just business )

Lots of things have led to the downfall of pubs and our government has done it no favours with opening hours and limiting (well banning most) drink promotions. Like many my biggest gripe is what's available. I like my wheat beer and some southy later but get hard to find the first and can't afford to pay for mixers for the later. Then again I can say that there are many, MANY people in this country who will not budge from Guinness or Carlsberg and small local pubs carrying obscure beers only result in out of date obscure beer! I even worked in a place where we stocked sky vodka for cheap or dearer smirnoff and the effort to wean the regulars off the dear stuff (which they were killing the taste of with mixers anyway) was a right pain and now my repressed memories of replacing US Bud with the nicer Czech bud and the rows that caused has come back to me.

Even when it comes to cheaper pubs, at least in my area, is that they attract a certain scummier clientele and the place ends up suffering.

I will say the place I do a bit in now is the closest I've seen to a good pub in ages. There is a big shed like area for live music for those not interested in conversation. Then there is a bar just small enough that everyone can be in the conversation but still able to have some privacy if they want. A pool table, dart board and poker machines also provide some entertainment and finally there is a quiet lounge where you can sit in a corner and read the paper over a pint.

briany

I have played in some pubs that made absolutely baffling management decisions. We're talking utterly counter productive stuff. One rural pub cancelled the mini-bus service to and from the place, which was just about the only thing getting people in on an average Saturday night. Why? Because it was costing them a little bit of money. So instead of having a band to pay and customers to draw a profit from, they had a band to pay and no customers, no profit.