The new breed of pub was developed over 15 years ago. The recognised change in the way pubs changed was by assassination of character. The traditional pub landlord was replaced by management teams.
To put this into context the survival of any business means an organised structure to business. A planned timetable of offers and services. A very good example of success is the Wetherspoon chain. Consistent products and services at affordable prices. One thing you would never be able to do and that is call a Wetherspoon a traditional pub, they are run by managers on shifts, there is no local feel about it.
We could blame Wetherspoon for setting a trend in motion but this would be unfair, after all business is about making a profit whilst serving your customers with what the market demands. In this case it’s cheap beer and cheap food.
If your palette desires fine wine and fine food you simply go somewhere where the food is cooked fresh on the day using fresh local produce by a real chef and the beer is perhaps not a day from it’s sell by date.
By the end of 2010 the British pub landscape will have changed beyond recognition. Scarred from the fastest change in social behaviour in decades. Changing labour forces, is there a working class left! Not that pubs only survived through the working classes. Popping down to the local was part of what made local communities local, everyone knew each other or knew of each other. Pub brought people together. Most pubs are now mostly places where groups of people go out and remain within the group which is why so many pubs have tapped into the party function hire facilities needed by groups of party revellers.
Whitbread Pubs are where you find Premier Inns – the harvester pub theme that sprang into action 20 years ago started the modernisation of british pubs.
Clean and well managed you get exactly what it says on the tin even if it appears to be made of plastic. Being a smart pub doesn’t always mean being a plastic pub with no character.
Themed Irish pubs were exported to popular UK tourist destination and by conincedence the UK created its own themed pub to the UK market. The traditional pubs of the UK were struck a blow as early as the mid 8o’s and there was no smoking bans or even supermaket. JD Wetherspoon have been accused all too often of buying beer in the same way that supermarkets do,the only difference being that supermarket beer is bought well within sell by dates and in bottles or cans as opposed to casks and barrels. The point that is probably the most interesting is that people still visit the new style cheap beer pubs with themes and this is not going to be any different for Whitbred pubs when they are refurbished during the next 2 years. Food and accommodation will be the theme and this is consistent pattern of demand by the consumer. Out are the old smoke rooms and the bars and in are the modern clean pubs of the future.
