Disturbances in Herne Hill on Fri/Sat night

[Giles]

My little girl's addicted to broccoli - it's almost all she will eat. Weird. She certainly doesn't get it from me. 'brocy, brocy' is all we hear....

If this were my kid, I would take her to a shrink! I hate broccoli!

Giles..

 

[Giles]

The problem with smaller neighbourhood pubs is that not enough people use their "local" often enough to make it work.

People tend to either "go out" properly - in which case they eschew the quiet "local" for somewhere more lively, or not go out at all.

People's houses are more comfortable and there is more entertainment there (more telly!) than the days when most of the typical London street-corner pubs were built.

And also, as soon as a pub changes hands at today's mad property prices, the new owners have paid so much for it that they HAVE to do what makes the most money. Greedy pubcos and breweries charging their leasehold pub "owners" over the odds for booze doesn't help. The only way to run a pub, in my eyes, is to own it freehold. Otherwise you just get shafted by the actual owners.

Giles..

 

[goldengraham]

Pubs should go beyond profit maximisation imo. Any idiot can see that it's easier to make quicker profits and higher margins from food than the heavily-taxed grog, but there's a social dimension to pubs that can't be replaced by the substitution of pan-fried turbot and beetroot foam.

I wouldn't be surprised if the owner of Ganleys sold up because of the smoking ban. If I were him I would have been pretty worried about how it would affect a sport-on-the-telly type pub business in the long term, let's face it people don't go to them so they can smoke in the back yard.

Interestingly, the Florence has banned smoking from the start. And actually, if you look at the food menu in there, it's just posh burger and chips. And not even all that posh at that.

 

[twistedAM]

And also, as soon as a pub changes hands at today's mad property prices, the new owners have paid so much for it that they HAVE to do what makes the most money. Greedy pubcos and breweries charging their leasehold pub "owners" over the odds for booze doesn't help. The only way to run a pub, in my eyes, is to own it freehold. Otherwise you just get shafted by the actual owners.

Giles..

Yes but freehold prices start at 600k in the London area. Take into consideration any renovations and redecoration and that's one heck of an investment to recoup, so quite often freehold pubs (or at least the recently acquired ones) have to put on music or sausage n tarragon mash to make the place pay.

Times have changed a lot. A decade or so back offies gave what seemed like a decent discount on beer compared to pubs. Now you can get 40 bottles of beer from the supermarket for what six would cost in an average London pub.

 

[top_biller]

A lot of classist stereotypical rubbish on this thread.

 

[twistedAM]

A lot of classist stereotypical rubbish on this thread.

Oh what you're saying that it doesn't matter that the cost of housing (which obviously has a knock-on effect on businesses in the area) in inner London isn't a problem that needs looking at?