Another Pub to close

Must admit, I do like The Royal now it's been done up. It's not in Barugh Green though. It's on the border between Barugh and Low Barugh. Sorry for picking you up on that, but it's a bugbear of mine.

 

Ffs jay.

I take you live in ward green not brigg ? Where does one begin and the other end. I live in Birdwell and I always feel that Birdwell ends and worsbro village starts at the cemetery.

 

Ward Green begins/ends at the end of Genn Lane, after that it's Worsbrough. Although, to confuse matters, Ward Green doesn't exist at all according to the post office, we're all Worsbrough.

I'd agree with that

The thing with Barugh Green, it's quite a way off The Royal. Barugh Green is anything south of the A635/Barugh Green Road/Lane Head Road. That's up Higham Common Road, before you get to Higham.

North of the A635 is Barugh, down to the A637/Barnsley Road/Claycliff Road. Then, down Dearne Hall Road is Low Barugh.

It all gets called Barugh Green, but it isn't, The Royal is half a mile away from Barugh Green.

 

I've experience dating back almost 30 years and I don't think I'm incorrect in saying no Pub Company has ever lost money due to sentiment.
although I do see that in some of their tenants/lessees. If you enter the trade with rose coloured glasses...they will let you.
As to the 5 year business plan, that usually includes an often uncompetitive lease/rent with only an upwards reviewal, Finance provided by a vicious bank that has business strategy more akin to the Pubco's often immoral and hard nosed (to a fault) practises. They will help you get the money...they will find the companies to do the expensive refurbs at your expense...and when things go t**ts up, they or the wonderful bank who they work hand in glove with still have the property.

 

Government, Legislation and changes in social patterns are reason pubs are struggling you cannot blame breweries...

10 years ago the pub trade was a very different place... No extended hours, no smoking bans and there was no recession. Priorities and social patterns have changed. Long gone are the days when office workers went for a pint at lunch with there colleagues, lucky these days if you get a lunch hour. Job losses mean less pocket money for those out of work and those in work are under pressure to work for longer resulting in less social time. Then we have extended opening hours that have changed our routines and killed city centre trade. Many of us now will stay local for longer because we can, and the youth of today drink to excess at home then head out to town centre bars in the early hours at what used to be kicking out time.

As pub is a tough business to run in the modern day. People don't go out as often as they used to, they drink less than they used to, you are expected to stay open for longer and with often less beer sold somehow pay wages for overtime. Add to that you need to constantly reinvent yourself to attract new trade all costing money.

Its bloomin tough out there but if you manage money well and give the people what they want they will come. There are some unlucky pubs that have closed, but many have not moved with the times and cannot manage moneys. To little to late.

 

Something else to consider is the price of alcohol in the supermarket. When I first started going out, in the late 80s and then the 90s, we rarely if ever bought cans and bottles from shops/supermarkets as there was relatively little difference in price between that and a pint in the pub. It was a bit cheaper from the shop, but not much. The price of beer in supermarkets has dropped massively. Last week I bought 24 bottles of Stella for £12. Deals like that are common place. It can cost you £3.75 for one bottle of Stella in town. I wouldn't dream of paying that, I have a pint of Acorn Blonde in the Number 7 for £2.50, but some folk like drinking bottled lager. 24 bottles at £3.75 would cost you 90 quid! It's no wonder young uns these days have a belly full at home before they go out.

Beer in the pubs has obviously gone up, and some places do seem to rip you off, but in most places its about in line with inflation. Beer in the supermarket is cheaper now, in the price you actually pay, disregarding inflation, than it was 25 years ago.

 

I agree Jay.

In the late 70s Friday night consisted of the bus into town from Birdwell at about 7.30. Meet a usual gang of mates in No 7 then a trip around town same pubs, same order finishing at Ring o' bells at about 11pm then last bus home.

Next day a bit of a sore head on account of about 7 pints but my pocket was still fairly intact.

Now the young uns go out at a time when I got home and are pissed up on the way into town.

 

Hi JTT, hope you are OK mate....what you have said there is pretty much spot on as far as the last few years have gone. One of the biggest problems has been the disconnect between breweries and pubs, an unintended consequence of the well meaning but badly worded 1989 Beer Orders. In the mid 70's South Yorks had 6 major breweries supplying the vast bulk of the areas beer. All the staff from the cleaning staff, through the Draymen and Brewhouse staff to the senior management lived in the local area, it was in everyones interest for the system to work. The beer orders were intended just to improve choice and healthy competition...sadly it gave the opportunity to remote managements to break the system that had worked reasonably well for 200 years. It allowed a new breed of shark in to the pond, backed by our ever so scrupulous city bankers.
The pubco's were the result. Even in the early 90's Sheffield still retained four large brewers, soon to be closed and production transferred often
down south, with all the losses in jobs that entailed. I know one head brewer who joined a consortium to have a management buy out...but 'The City' boys soon scuppered that, even though the Brewery had posted £5.5m profit in it's last year. I know of several cases of city engineered board room coups, where directors whose family had been involved for centuries had gagging orders placed on them and were frogmarched from the site by security.....this type of business management style (for want of a better word) is quite typical of the people who control the pubs now.
I'm certainly not having a go at Loko Tyke..or the company he works for, and I can say that a couple of the smaller ones I have dealt with are decent, but the reality of it is the Big Pubco's are vicious institutions who see the tenant as little more than a cash cow ripe to have his bank account devastated. I know many times more people who've lost everything, than people who've made anything, once they sign on the dotted line. Ruined tenants have in several cases taken the Pubco's to court and won...so their city lawyers move the goalposts slightly in the leases to keep them just on the side of UK legality.

 

I think it is therefore my duty to stop working right now and go support a local pub