Has the pub lost it's way

ScumLord

All that can be done in a Public house these days is consume alcohol which means it's not somewhere for kids or non drinkers, or even drinkers. I don't go near a pub during the week as I don't want to be around alcohol.

I remember when I was a kid we used to spend a good bit of time in pubs playing pool, arcade games and just hanging out.

We always hear that pubs are dieing thanks to the the government but what are landlords doing to stop that? I think the pub should go back to being a public house that has something for everyone not just a place to get drunk. There's little or no service provided by pubs.

jameshayes

where's the darts, pool, pacman and puzzle bobble gone?!?

and a basket of chips and saussys

P_1

I agree completley. Even having a conversation in a pub is difficult these days due to the loud pumping music that most places insist is the 'in thing'.

monkeyfudge

All those things would be the death of the pub!

You go to a pub to drink, socialise and have conversations. Or perhaps have a nice quite lunch time pint with the newspaper.

It's bad enough that there is televisions and piped music in most pubs... If you want to play pool, go to a pool hall... if you want to play videogames go to an arcade...

Mr.Nice Guy

monkeyfudge wrote: »

All those things would be the death of the pub!

You go to a pub to drink, socialise and have conversations. Or perhaps have a nice quite lunch time pint with the newspaper.

It's bad enough that there is televisions and piped music in most pubs... If you want to play pool, go to a pool hall... if you want to play videogames go to an arcade...

Agreed. And I consider it bad parenting to take a kid to a pub. If you want to get pissed don't do it with little ones about, especially when said little ones tend to run about the place screaming.

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Deffinatly agree, the demise in pool tables, darts boards is down to the fact that they take up too much room, all publicans want is to cram as many people into the pub as possible.

A lot of people complained about having kids in pubs also, even I avoid certain pubs on Sat / Sun afternoons as I know there will be a lot of families out there with kids running amok.

Dave!

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Agreed. And I consider it bad parenting to take a kid to a pub. If you want to get pissed don't do it with little ones about, especially when said little ones tend to run about the place screaming.

You don't have to get p*ssed in the pub. Used to be taken to the pub with my parents most weekends to watch the football and have a bit of dinner. Nowt wrong with it.

Ponster

I haven't lived in Ireland since pre-Celtic Tiger days but aren't there a load of different types of bars out there? When you're growing up you may tend to head to the cool bars that blast music but at some stage (about 22 for me) I started to go to 'old men bars', you know, the ones that only have Guinness and Smithwicks on draught. Bars which 2 years privously I would have avoided like the plague.

In Paris I head to the Lollipop for sports (4 tellys with sound in 4 different areas of the bar) and The Cork&Cavan when I want a quite pint (telly is almost never on, music is usually jazz, easy-listening, background-stuff).

A bar for each mood. Isn't that possible?

Ponster

Ponster wrote: »

I haven't lived in Ireland since pre-Celtic Tiger days but aren't there a load of different types of bars out there? When you're growing up you may tend to head to the cool bars that blast music but at some stage (about 22 for me) I started to go to 'old men bars', you know, the ones that only have Guinness and Smithwicks on draught. Bars which 2 years privously I would have avoided like the plague.

In Paris I head to the Lollipop for sports (4 tellys with sound in 4 different areas of the bar) and The Cork&Cavan when I want a quite pint (telly is almost never on, music is usually jazz, easy-listening, background-stuff).

A bar for each mood. Isn't that possible?

Not really anymore. They're all trying to become these damn awful "super-pubs" and try and make as much money as possible.

I used to love going to the pub next door to me when I was younger and playing a game of pool. I'd be there for hours with my friends just hanging out.

biko

I concur in that there is not enough pub games available, pool, darts, etc.
A few of the old men pubs still have them though, if you know were to look.

biko

biko wrote: »

I concur in that there is not enough pub games available, pool, darts, etc.
A few of the old men pubs still have them though, if you know were to look.

But I find that some old men pubs have very depressing atmospheres. Especially country ones, where you'd regularly see them falling asleep at the counter.

Ponster

Isn't *every* country pub an 'old mens' pub?

At least the bar section, most have a lounge I imagine with pool/darts.

Latchy

I to am am an irish pub goer from the pre-celtic tiger days (hate the phrase) when i used to frequent Dublin pubs like the Auld dubliner ,Mc daids,Toners ,fleet inn ,and quite a few others in that area and they all had 2 things in common ,not to overcrowed and a good chat with whoever was around (which was mainly locals ) .There were a couple of hundred other pubs in the same vein dotted around the city ,all with there own style and charm .Not sure if there are many around like that now ,maybe mulligans and toners .

prendy

concur in that there is not enough pub games available, pool, darts, etc.
A few of the old men pubs still have them though, if you know were to look

i agree biko but it used to be the decent places that had these pool darts etc....now its the places you wouldnt wanna go.

i personally like nothing better than a game of pool or darts and listen to jukebox with the lads wen were on the beer...unfortuantely most places we used to go got "renovated" and now its a DJ and standing room only!

P_1

Just out of interest, does anybody here actually enjoy the blaring music that is the norm in most pubs these days?
TBH if I wanted that I'd go to a club or something.

Catch_22

no but if you cant here each other talk you drink more

Ponster

What we need is a national drive to list 'decent pubs' as defined by my generation (by the way the latest 'what age are you poll' puts me in a group of only 10%).

I propose a peer-reviewed pub list of places that you can either

a) enjoy a drink on a weekend withit it being *too* overcrowded
b) no 'piped' music that you have to really yell over
c) pool/darts/jukebox




I'm sure thought that 80% of Boards will just say that I'm just too old to enjopy the current Irish pub scene...

DO0GLE

All depends on the pub you go to....not all pubs are the same

Dave!

pithater1 wrote: »

Just out of interest, does anybody here actually enjoy the blaring music that is the norm in most pubs these days?
TBH if I wanted that I'd go to a club or something.

I hate it... I hate the way there's music EVERYWHERE you go, actually. Can't walk into a pub, shop, barbers, church, etc., without Spin playing in the background..... annoying...

biko

I get the feeling this is an inner city problem? Whenever I'm rural pubs there seem to be a whole different atmosphere.

prendy

i dont mind a bitta music so long as its not too loud to talk...i taut thats what they invented niteclubs for??????

Degsy

prendy wrote: »

i agree biko but it used to be the decent places that had these pool darts etc....now its the places you wouldnt wanna go.

i personally like nothing better than a game of pool or darts and listen to jukebox with the lads wen were on the beer...unfortuantely most places we used to go got "renovated" and now its a DJ and standing room only!

Dontp forget ten quid a pint.
I was waiting on somebody in a boozer and noticed they were selling Bavaria,its usually around three quid a pint and being the tight git i am i asked for one,when it arrived the bloke tried to charge me 5.40!!!!FIVE FORTY for a pint of Bavaria..its a loss leader in most pubs to t ry and ghet people back in.I told him where to stick it.
Another palce i was in was selling Larios gin.As anybody who has ever holidayed in Spain will tell you its a)undrinkable and b)4 euro a litre,so i asked was it on some sort of special offer,no,says the barman,thats what we "Carry" now.So thats nearly a fiver for a shot of gutrot gin that bars in Tenerife wouldnt sell.You can get it in mainland spain so i suspect the publican had imported the stuff by the truckload,christ knows how much he was getting it for,probably a euro a litre.Greedy,greedy bastards and they wonder why sales are down.

Lola123

pithater1 wrote: »

Just out of interest, does anybody here actually enjoy the blaring music that is the norm in most pubs these days?
TBH if I wanted that I'd go to a club or something.

Yes, "old men's pubs" are lacking in atmosphere most of the time, and in a lot of "locals" girls seem to get funny looks if you sit in the "wrong" part of the bar.... ie. the part that is usually taken up by said old men.

If I want to actually talk to my friends, I'll go for dinner, coffee or have drinks in someones house. Sitting around having old men staring over does not make for a comfortable conversation!

P_1

Lola123 wrote: »

Yes, "old men's pubs" are lacking in atmosphere most of the time, and in a lot of "locals" girls seem to get funny looks if you sit in the "wrong" part of the bar.... ie. the part that is usually taken up by said old men.

If I want to actually talk to my friends, I'll go for dinner, coffee or have drinks in someones house. Sitting around having old men staring over does not make for a comfortable conversation!

Not a big fan of old man bars myself but I asolutley despise having to shout to the person sitting beside me in the pub. Some sort of happy medium FTW IMO.

Ponster

I remember though some of the 'old men' pubs in Clonmel started to get popular enough that on an average Fri/Sat evening you'd get a good crowd of people in, enough to create a different sort of atmospehere. I guess the major difference is the lack of blaring music.

In the UK last year for Xmas I went for a pint in a bar in Mansfield and when I asked what the name of the song there were playing and why it was being played so loud the staff said that they didn't choose the music nor the volume. A company provided them with mp3s of music that had been choosen by 'experts'. The playlist and order of the songs was designed to get people in and get them to stay.

At least it's not that bad (yet) in Ireland.

cson

Had an enjoyable evening watching the match yesterday. Only 3.90 for a pint of Heinken in my local. One thing that gets my goat though is this; a couple of times in Dublin, in Break For The Border and some place off O'Connell st I've turned away a pint after the barman asked for €5.60 :eek: for it. And most of the time they've argued with me about it. I mean its not their fooking pint thats being wasted is it?

ScumLord

biko wrote: »

I get the feeling this is an inner city problem? Whenever I'm rural pubs there seem to be a whole different atmosphere.

Not really, I'm from a small town in the west and it's gotten to the stage the pubs won't open during the week. Every pub in town has a dart board and there's 3 pool tables, one of them's pointless though.

But they complain on ones coming to the pub during the week, but they can't really drive in and then be expected to knock back pints and no one wants to pay pub prices for soft drinks.

Pubs could easily go for a cafe setup during the day and drinking at night but not one of them tries.

Degsy

ScumLord wrote: »

Not really, I'm from a small town in the west and it's gotten to the stage the pubs won't open during the week. Every pub in town has a dart board and there's 3 pool tables, one of them's pointless though.

But they complain on ones coming to the pub during the week, but they can't really drive in and then be expected to knock back pints and no one wants to pay pub prices for soft drinks.

Pubs could easily go for a cafe setup during the day and drinking at night but not one of them tries.

It never occurs to them that they could sell burger n chips,sausages in a basket or something like that as well..with publicans its all about how much they can get away with screwing people for drink.

KingOfFairview

Lola123 wrote: »

Sitting around having old men staring over does not make for a comfortable conversation!

Makes for one hell of a **** though

meglome

ScumLord wrote: »

All that can be done in a Public house these days is consume alcohol which means it's not somewhere for kids or non drinkers, or even drinkers. I don't go near a pub during the week as I don't want to be around alcohol.

Well you wouldn't want to be a non-drinker given the price of a soft drink. And how many pubs especially in cental Dublin will give you a splash, very very few. You go to the UK and it's the norm.

ScumLord wrote: »

I remember when I was a kid we used to spend a good bit of time in pubs playing pool, arcade games and just hanging out.

Very true.

ScumLord wrote: »

We always hear that pubs are dieing thanks to the the government but what are landlords doing to stop that? I think the pub should go back to being a public house that has something for everyone not just a place to get drunk. There's little or no service provided by pubs.

It's not thanks to the government as much as you can point the finger at them for many other things. We have high taxes on booze but when you add into that the unmitigated greed of the publicans that's when you have a problem. They had it their own way for several years and now it's coming home to roost. The pub prices rose steadily for year’s, way more then they should have. I can go into the Da's local and he's buying a Guinness for €3.40 or so and in town it's a good €5, pubs which have several times the business.

MikeHoncho

There is plenty of proper pubs around. My local (Ballinteer House) has a snooker room in it and decent grub too. In town there is lots of great great pubs that dont play loud music and have a nice atmosphere. The problem is when your on a night out there is no ladies in these places so you end up going to the super pubs with blaring music cus thats what chicks like.

Off the top of my head:
The Old Stand
The Stags Head
The Bachelor
Grogans
The Long Hall
Nearys

Plenty more too if I thought about it.

Mr.Nice Guy

DaveMcG wrote: »

You don't have to get p*ssed in the pub. Used to be taken to the pub with my parents most weekends to watch the football and have a bit of dinner. Nowt wrong with it.

Nothing wrong if you're out to have a meal I agree but if you're simply out to drink then I don't believe it's an environment suitable for children.

sickpuppy

The price of drink is ridiculous,
was in the half way house yesterday for lunch had a pint of cider with it 5.80ffs.People give out about the price of petrol for 5.80 you could drive 4 people ina small car 60 or 70 miles or have a pint of flavoured water.
The cost has killed the pub and poxy sky sports any pub with more than 3 or 4 televisons with hordes of scangers roaring at celtic or some other drivel on the screen should be avoided.

Statso

My pub still has a pool table, darts board, a jukebox and every monday lunchtime we provide free food to our customers. So not all pubs have gone that way. Just most, though i agree with you that more pubs should have pool tables or dart boards to provide extra entertainment.

Degsy

sickpuppy wrote: »

The price of drink is ridiculous,
was in the half way house yesterday for lunch had a pint of cider with it 5.80ffs.People give out about the price of petrol for 5.80 you could drive 4 people ina small car 60 or 70 miles or have a pint of flavoured water.
The cost has killed the pub and poxy sky sports any pub with more than 3 or 4 televisons with hordes of scangers roaring at celtic or some other drivel on the screen should be avoided.

I hope you didnt pay it?You should've walked out.
I wonder what would happen is shops were to start charging 6 quid for a loaf of bread,they'd probably be shut down.

Fighting Irish

Lets bash the pub owners for wanting to make money

muppetkiller

The other point about pool tables is they tend to attract the scum element in urban areas. This leads to drunkin fights and generally blacklists the pub. Can't see why they don't have dartboards though.
I used to love when they had packs of cards too , but that was in the days when scumbags wouldn't steal them..

meglome

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Lets bash the pub owners for wanting to make money

I'm a capitalist myself so that's not what I was saying. In every open marketplace there should be choice. Prices should potentially vary quite a bit. But in any half decent pub in Dublin City centre the prices were just high. And on top of that quite a lot of them raised the prices even higher after 11:30. I was downstairs in Thomas Reads a few weeks back and a large bottle of Bulmers was €6.40 or something. Didn't notice until the next day but haven't been back since.

Degsy

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Lets bash the pub owners for wanting to make money

They DO make money,lots and lots of it.They just seem to think they're not making enough so they are charging ridiculous prices out of greed.Anybody know a poor publican?

sickpuppy

Re degsy i did pay it i had the dinner in front of me and was starving iknow its pointless to complain and then do nothing about it.
But for me im finished with drinking in the pub theres just no value in it.
The dinner cost 10euro aplate of nice bacon and veg at least theres some value in it.

eirebhoy

My local has 2 pool tables, a jukebox, weekly poker tournaments, beer garden, quiet area, function room and a decent crowd of people. It's only a small enough pub too.

Trojan911

This publican is not doing much. He's chucking punters out who bring in trade.... He must be loaded or is it greedy?

mise_me_fein

DO0GLE wrote: »

All depends on the pub you go to....not all pubs are the same

Agree with this. There's plenty of good quite pubs where you can have the craic without ANY music.

Think this topic should be Has the "Dublin, or at least big town" pub lost it's way

dotsman

To be fair to "publicans", you have to distinguish between the different types of "publicans".

The publican suffering the most tends to be the family-run pub in the country. They have a limited trade potential and with massive increases in stock/tax/overheads over the past few years, hit with a smoking ban and increasing action against drink drivers, topped off with more and more people (30/40 somethings) preferring "dinner parties" or a night in with a bottle of wine and a dvd to a night down their local, there's very little they can do to reverse the problem.

Then there's the business type publicans. Usually a few men with large financial backing. They buy a city centre bar, fit it out with stainless steel and zero atmosphere, pump out blaring music and charge ridiculous money for their drinks. The success/failure of these pubs will have very little to do with whether it's a good pub or not (because they're all sh!t!), but whether it becomes an "in" place or not. The amount of horrible post-modern holes that will have queues of people outside is ridiculous. (They can increase the chance of it becoming an in place by having some "celebrities" - i.e. some orange tart who once scored with a guy who's friend plays on the Irish Rugby team;), being seen there).

The fact of the matter is that there's a vicious circle to the pub trade. Because of the increased expense of drink (and difficulty of getting to the pub in rural areas), less people are going for a social drink and instead opting for getting hammered (I hate the term "binge-drinking") on a weekend night instead. Therefore the pubs that make the money are the "MacDonald" pubs that can process the sheep and not the ones that provide a nice relaxing atmosphere. Thus, more and more pubs are trying to compete for the Saturday night mob (by being refitted with stainless steel and baring music). Thus making it even less desirable to go for a few scoops on a Wednesday evening.

Another factor is the price of the actual pub. Given that pubs are typically in prime locations in the city/town/village, the value of the pub has risen dramatically over the past few years. Suddenly the original owner is given the option to sell their pub for ridiculous money or continue slaving away making a nice (but not amazing) living. Many traditional publicans did sell out over the past 5/10 years. And who bought them out? Yes, the "business publicans" who now have to find a way to make a return on their investment. Cue refitting with stainless steel, blaring music, **** atmosphere - but a good chance of being jammers on a saturday night! And if that doesn't work, sell it and the next business will try again and this time may get lucky and become an "in" spot. (Ever notice it tends to be the same pubs that are always changing hands every few years).

Personally, I blame women. Women (well, most of them) have sh!t taste in pubs, preferring to go where it's cool to be seen as opposed to going to a nice relaxed "regular" pub. As women tend to dictate where a bunch of (mixed) friends go, guys will end up going to said sh!t soulless pubs. Women also buy the more expensive drinks (or have them bought for them:p), and tend not to have a desire for a few socials down the local on a weekday.

mise_me_fein

dotsman wrote: »

Personally, I blame women. Women (well, most of them) have sh!t taste in pubs, preferring to go where it's cool to be seen as opposed to going to a nice relaxed "regular" pub. As women tend to dictate where a bunch of (mixed) friends go, guys will end up going to said sh!t soulless pubs. Women also buy the more expensive drinks (or have them bought for them:p), and tend not to have a desire for a few socials down the local on a weekday.

You hit the nail on the head there. I never thought about this. Women don't want to go to pubs at all when they get older, only to show their face catch up on gossip.

biko

If the pubs/clubs can attract women they know men will follow. Simple as.
Drunk fellas will go wherever there's a chance of scoring.

Hence ****e music - cause girls likes to dance. All we lads want to do is talk about stuff/ sports and down pints.

Ergo, you get the pub-club with loud dancy music.