English Pubs

English pubs started out from humble beginnings.  Originally they were a “public house” quite literally.  They stared in many cases as an open room made available to members of the village offering home brewed ales and occasionally food.  They were very simple affairs that offered a basic common ground at which people could meet and discuss issues and forthcoming events.

The English pub has grown considerably since the early days of its inception.  They have developed a well rounded collection of alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages available and nearly all offer some kind of food, whether it is a full menu of hot and cold, or in some cases a selection of sandwiches available.  Some pubs do not offer food, though these are very rare now and they tend to fall into the category of “working men’s clubs”, though these are now rapidly declining.

The English country pub is a very traditional idea, though the proper country pub is not always available in every village as it once was.  There are many reasons for this, from the rise in food and drink prices to the increasing vigil on drink driving laws.  There are also social factors as well as the basic financial factors.  Social factors that affect public house support would be the increase in social networking sites, so people do not need to go out to meet their friends all the time, the increase in the number of clubs and big city pubs with cheaper drinks, late licences and dance music and the decline of the old fashioned village values.  As the number of country pubs has declined, so has the number of people going out to them.  Many people have had their local pub change hands many times with each person having a new idea on how to make more money than the last, which leads to an inconsistency that will put off many of the regular punters.

Country pubs have long had problems getting the number of customers they require to keep themselves going, with many of the ones that keep going being in the hands of a large brewery that is subsidising rents or in the hands of families that are now in the position of owning their property outright.  The average country pub has to work much harder in some respects than the city pubs as they do not have as much passing trade and can rely heavily on local support and word of mouth advertising.  It can have a huge effect on a village pub if there are locals who do not like it or the people running it, though many pubs are now aiming for the pub food market which can fall outside of local opinion.