Why don't Irish pubs sell snacks?

An old local of mine used to do soup and sandwiches in the noughties, and chips, cocktail sausages and gougons on big sporting occasions. They also served lunch Mon-Fri. The bar staff used to let locals go out to the kitchen to make their own when they were busy in the bar.

The kitchen was always spotless, but the bar staff didn't have time to prepare food when it was busy. It was a popular pub so they were busy most of the time.

They stopped serving food after a few years, probably due to regulations. No one ever got food poisoning though.

Spain are brilliant at bar food. Every bar has someone in the back cooking.

Every bar is open for coffee and toasted breads etc in the morning too.

That was in Bordeaux.

Visited a friend in a midlands town the other week. Had a few pints in the pub. Ordered food from their menu. It came from the take away a few doors up.

Why do we have to be such ninnies for regulations, the same regs that apply in France and Spain?

If you’re a public why be imaginative or even innovative? If the punters start voting with their feet you just get your rep association to lobby govt. who will breed over faster than a tree in a hurricane and tax or regulate out of existence whatever the punters are doing.

It may be the case that the good pub has moved on and gone more upmarket in the main but I frequented a local fur soup and a toasted regularly when I worked in dun laoire back in The 2000s. I can’t see why this isn’t still an option.

Publics might feel they aren’t getting the footfall to justify doing simple food and complying with bee regulations. They don’t see that the Orleans stems from their lobbying and trying to protect their outdated model as well as price gouging on drinks. The people they should be lobbying are the breweries. Mind you they are week able to charge themselves too. Offer good value and you’ll get the punters. At €7 a point and maybe €20 for a meal now even the pub is a luxury in the current climate.

Regulations re food safety. I have family who were involved in pub business 30 years ago - common then for the message to come upstairs for the woman of the house to make ham sandwiches or soup etc, done at the kitchen table.

From personal experience I have worked in ones that do.

It's a pretty small number anyway because most pubs never did toasties.

It's not got to do with regulations for toasties (soup yes). In those situations it's got to do with lots of publicans not living in the pubs anymore and if they do the chances the "woman of the house" is waiting around upstairs in case you want a toastie are very slim.

Ya and they don't exist that much anymore. It's nothing to do with regulations and all to do with the changing nature of the "family pub". Most publicans I know wouldn't be caught dead living above their own pub now and the partner probably has a job seperate to the pub.

In the UK you still get a lot of the chain pubs advertising for a husband (bar manager) and wife (cook) team to manage pubs but that doesn't happen here because we don't have that type of chain pub.

It's not just the HSE though. The fire regulations can be strenuous and as you said the idea of living upstairs is becoming rarer and rarer.

A lot of accomodation would be outdated and no longer suited to a family regardless of regulations.

So now people have 3 properties to maintain, 2 electric bills, broadband, maintenance, 2 insurance policies etc l.

Another part of drink being more expensive.

Is this Fullers crowd a fancier Wetherspoons in the UK ?

When I was over in London in the summer a lot of places were run by them

The Amstel was nice tbh

You'd miss a proper pint of Carlsberg in the UK

Those traditions are not great when you are in my situation and myself the bar manager and my platonic male chef friend are refused the job because we are not a barman and cook woman team. Should be illegal what they do over there.

Same in the UK. All microwave in bag stuff.

I remember being in a pub in Australia years ago and they served free sausage rolls and mini pies a couple of times through the night.

Such a simple idea and would keep people in the pub all night.

A pub in Ennis, McHughs, did tge tapas thing. There were being run by western hard brewery at that stage. It wasn’t very inviting though as it was expensive for what you get and if you order a few bits the price really added up. Don’t think it lasted long and it’s definitely not a western herd pub now. Not knocking Western Herd. Lonely bunch of people but tapas here seems to be a way of extracting maximum coin for a small output.

They are famous for not really changing in 50 years and being in the centre of town. Toasted sandwiches are mediocre. I'd rather just stoll off to get something elsewhere and then come back again.

More an observation than actually why not more Irish pubs sell snacks : The actual in house coffee machine.

In 2 separate establishments in Dublin - one now gone some years and the other in Ranelagh: both places served a menu.

I made a throwaway remark about the stare of coffee machine and the bar man gave a complete death stare.

A coffee machine remains a more a black art for many Irish publicans in this day and age

Regular Cleaning of said coffee machine will also present challenges : this is stipulated legislation by the HSE - A rocket science for the skivvy new join employed by the same pub.

This was big during covid, our local had no options to serve food but the village had a catering company. So you could go in, order the grub, have a few beers while it got delivered from the company

Because eating is cheating