Irish pubs vs British pubs

lufties wrote: »

Well I can only speak for london when it comes to Britain really. Irish pubs (dublin in particular) are more friendly, bar staff are arms and legs above their british counterparts. The service I've had in london pubs recently has been awful, overpriced and service without a smile. Getting poor pints thrown out to me by trainee bar staff, long needless ques for drinks..generally in ireland bar staff are professional, I guess its different culturally whereby un england they used to **** bar/restaurant service

So...?

Thank you for this insight. Some pubs are different than others.

Irish pubs are more cosy and welcoming; whereas for the most part in the UK it seems any old dive will do.

I think it comes for the fact that in Britain that most of the pubs are owned by breweries and rented from them by individuals who therefore don't have as much of an incentive as their Irish counterparts to invest heavily in the pub itself.

Have to say as far as the welcoming part goes i think pubs in England are generally very poor, I have only had one really good experience and that was in a small town in the North East. Been to loads of different parts of England.

Been to Liverpool and Leeds, people are normal as here. Except ONE place in Leeds... those guys were the friendliest and most welcoming ever.

Of course you're going to get "unwelcoming" places in a capital...

the only problem I'd have with pubs in London is that it's mostly chain pubs like wetherspoons. There's nothing wrong with them, they're the travel inn of pubs. Everything is to an acceptable level but it's not going to be the most fun or exciting place in the world.

People in UK pubs tend to go in for a bit of food or meet up with friends so they're all stuck in their own clicks and you don't get the mingling you get in Irish pubs. I've only seen one side of London pubs though I'm sure there's a better nightlife and independent pub/club trade that I've just never had time to see.

I wouldn't call London pubs expensive though.


There are some really spectacular old pubs around the UK though, I went into one that was hundreds of years old and made it's own beer downstairs in the same vats the Romans used to make their beer. £2.20 for a pint of real ale, can't argue with that. It was a heritage town and the fact they weren't trying to fleece you just because their pub was old was nice.

Your Superior wrote: »

What a load of bollocks. Many Irish pubs are dives, crapholes and unwelcoming. Probably about the same %age as those in the UK.

Where did I say that there aren't any pubs in Ireland that are dives, crapholes and unwelcoming?
From living in the UK though I think the % is higher than in Ireland.

I don't see the same extent of 'British' themed pubs the world over so there must be some truth to the Irish pubs being better, however slightly.

WesternZulu wrote: »

Where did I say that there aren't any pubs in Ireland that are dives, crapholes and unwelcoming?
From living in the UK though I think the % is higher than in Ireland.

I don't see the same extent of 'British' themed pubs the world over so there must be some truth to the Irish pubs being better, however slightly.

We don't open British pubs abroad usually, we just colonise them and turn them in to British pubs....

On a serious note, it may be because British pubs don't fit easily into a national stereotype the way Irish pubs do, with the Guinness signs and tacky crap all over the walls, using names like O'Leprechauns Irish pub.

Your Superior wrote: »

The vast majority of people do not only go the pub for food. Proper pubs don't serve food, for one thing. Meeting up with friends, maybe, but the level of mingling is no different to Irish pubs.

Also you really are going to the wrong places in London. There are some magnificent pubs there, great at any time of day or night. I do think that the best pubs are up north though, Chester, Manchester, Leeds etc plus the towns surrounding like Huddersfield, Wigan, Stalybridge and Saddleworth can't be beaten anywhere.

I spent a fair amount of time wandering the streets of London and going to different pubs, the only way I could find independant places was to search online and get a taxi to there and back to where I was staying.

On one street I was looking for somewhere to eat and every one of them was a pub restaurant and every one of them (on the same street, 5 different places) where the same chain pub (not wetherspoons). When I did find older traditional pubs I'd find out once inside they're basically owned by wetherspoons, they've just kept them traditional because of heritage orders, wetherspoons own most of those old traditional pubs too.

Walk down any random street in London and everything a chain something, the corner shop is tesco express, the restaurant is a nandos, the pub is a wetherspoons (even if it doesn't look like a wetherspoons). There certainly are independently owned business (and they tend to be of a high standard to compete) but the vast majority of businesses you'll come across on any given street in any English city is a chain.

One thing I miss about Ireland is the bar-staff. Over here the staff will only pour one pint at a time and take one order at a time, they'll never remember your drink when you go up again and there's also a too-cool-for-school attitude in some of the "trendier" places where they think it's a privilege for you to be served by them. You'd be hauled over the bar in Ireland for that sort of carry-on.

That having been said, the minimum wage in the UK is a pittance and impossible to live on in London - as the saying goes, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

The comments about chain-pubs is fair enough but not every pub is like that; most people's experience of boozing in London is in the city centre which is a tourist trap. Places like Angel, Islington, Camden, Clapham, Shoreditch have plenty of independent or innovative venues where a great night can be had. Similarly, during the boom - many pubs in Dublin and Cork sprung up that were carbon copies of each other and were little more than soulless meat-markets charging through the absolute b*llocks for a pint.

ScumLord wrote: »

I spent a fair amount of time wandering the streets of London and going to different pubs, the only way I could find independant places was to search online and get a taxi to there and back to where I was staying.

On one street I was looking for somewhere to eat and every one of them was a pub restaurant and every one of them (on the same street, 5 different places) where the same chain pub (not wetherspoons). When I did find older traditional pubs I'd find out once inside they're basically owned by wetherspoons, they've just kept them traditional because of heritage orders, wetherspoons own most of those old traditional pubs too.

Walk down any random street in London and everything a chain something, the corner shop is tesco express, the restaurant is a nandos, the pub is a wetherspoons (even if it doesn't look like a wetherspoons). There certainly are independently owned business (and they tend to be of a high standard to compete) but the vast majority of businesses you'll come across on any given street in any English city is a chain.

That's the case in Central London but not the case in most other parts of the city. Yes in a place like Shoreditch you'll have a Nandos, McDs and a Wetherspoons somewhere but they're a small minority of the businesses there. In the suburbs you'll usually have local and workingmen's pubs as opposed to chains. Your description only sums up the Zone 1 centre and not other parts.

Head up to the North of England, anywhere from Birmingham North and you'll find some little Gems of Pubs.

lufties wrote: »

Putney high street, zone 2 and full of ****ing horrible chains.

I've never been to Putney so I can't comment but I could give you a multitude of other areas where that isn't the case. Angel, Camden, Shoreditch, Hoxton, Clapton, Dalston, Hackney, Finsbury Park, Sheperd's Bush, Notting Hill, Portobello, Brixton, Peckham and Vauxhall are all places north, east, south and west that are nothing like you describe.

grimm2005 wrote: »

Completely agree with this. I've had a few brilliant nights out in Camden that easily rival or were better then nights I've had in Dublin, and the bar staff were perfectly grand and in the World's End for example are incredibly fast and efficient, more so then I've seen in most places in Dublin. People seem to forget that London is a gigantic city that's exponentially larger then Dublin, there's many areas to go out on a night out and places that will suit everyone's niche.

Agree with you except on the World's End. Without fail, everyone behind the ramp there is a useless c*nt when it comes to pulling pints and serving people. Half of them are stoned off their tits so it's no surprise. Filthiest jacks in the western world as well.