Trendification of pubs - classic or dud?

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Brought up on the other thread.

The "office" pub near us was the lovely geezer pub "The Old Suffolk Punch" closed for a refurb, and re-opens as "OSP". it is THE most annoying pub/bar i've been in, and I quite like wine bars. There are these terrible long poster/frieze things of young people smiling and having a laugh. really tremendously punchable stuff. we got quite enraged when we went down to try it out.

Now we are stuffed, as the only two pubs in spitting distance are "Finnegan's Wake" (yes with the apostrophe) which is rub oirish nonsense, and "The Distillers" which is just naff and they often refuse scots notes (bastards), so we ignore it (despite it being the realactual nearest pub)

*ahem* so, yes, trendified pubs. vent

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:06 (twenty-three years ago)

The most terrible act of godawful fuckedupness was the desecration of the Mitre in Cambridge. Okay, it wasn't a wonderful place or anything, and the clientele were nothing special, but it was OLD and DARK and QUITE LOUD but not TOO LOUD and people seemed GENUINELY RELAXED. Now it is so soulless and bland and muzaky - IT's NOT EVEN SUCCESSFUL SO THE WHOLE EXERCISE WAS POINTLESS - and I feel a real pang of sadness when I walk past it.

― Sam (chirombo), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:19 (twenty-three years ago)

went to the steam passage on tuesday, and thats horrible, bright lights, harsh atmosphere, clapham-esque, thos pubs that feel like a branch of habitat.

having said that, i dont know if it has been refurbished recently, or i got mixed up with another pub

― gareth (gareth), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:20 (twenty-three years ago)

"Those pubs which look like a branch of habitat" nails it exactly. I can understand the appeal to the pub owners of doing this: it seems to enable them to boost their prices by at least 20-30p per pint. It's the relentlessness and inevitability I can't stand: if a pub closes for a refurb, you know what it'll look like afterwards. And I wish they'd at least do it to pubs that were ruined by the last refurb, like the Rose & Crown off Blackfriars Road rather than wreck perfectly servicable trad boozers (like the Ring, just down the road from the R&C).

It was just as bad when pubs were all getting done out with sterile mock victorian traditional pubbe decor, mind.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:26 (twenty-three years ago)

The Steam Passage was refurbed but quite a while ago now - it was better before yes.

Has anyone been to the Endurance yet??

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Time Out said the endurance has nice food. that is all

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:37 (twenty-three years ago)

No TOm, this is the second refurb of the Steam Passage in three years. When it went all pastelly it became no. 63 - but it was a bit half hearted cos they left the Steam Passage sign up. Now they have bought the shop next door expanded and balnded out - though it is more like a pub than a wine bar now.

I watch it with interest, in the end its in the attempt to turn a buck over which a lot of craggy old man boozers (what I like) don't really do. But this fad will pass as will the next. In the Licensed trade you are bombarded with stats and various consultants who will tell you that a refurb will up you take by 50%. What they don't say is that alienating the core punter means you have no regulars who you could rely on to turn over that initial take. Hence you are on the refurb treadmill for life.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha Alan I read the bit abt The Endurance in Time Out: I thought it was being suggested that it was still rough and publike *for a gastropub*.

NB: I have no objection to gastropubs, esp when they rise from the ashes of trad pubs so resoundingly terrible as the KoC.

Search: The Lord Clyde.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Alan, that sounds like SW London demographic HELL, *with a raspberry coulis*. And the Shiny Happy People posters, AAARGH. It's like: 'be happy, little worker bees!' FUCK OFF. Would it be uncouth to suggest that London Underground's Cock and Hairy Balls graffito pop in for a cheeky half and some alterations?

My rules for 2002/3, marketing men for pub refits CHECK IT OUT: no beechwood ANYTHING. No royal blue. no 'script' in glass frosting on the windows (I badly want to find some hardcore lesbians to photograph in front of the 'nosh nibble chew/swallow suck slurp' window-frosting of the shlug and lettuce on Old Street). No Chardonnay for the ladies over David Gray boozak. If you call that underbaked french roll with the regurgitant in it a PANINI and charge me six quid to serve it next to some very curly lettuce and equally underdone 'fries' I will kill you, slowly, by removing your testes one by one, then moving on to other body parts as Nomi Chant plays in the background. GOT IT?

However no objections to good gastropubs. Love the Crown but it's steep, £12 for shepherd's pie although it was the hugest and best I've ever had. But then I live right over a nice pub w/good Irish landlords and am a hop away from the Eagle, so will never, ever have to see this place.

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 28 November 2002 12:54 (twenty-three years ago)

w-w-what? they've refubished the Mitre! that's RUB ON A STICK!!

― katie (katie), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Refurbishment ROOLZOR!!!

Down with the pub Rockistas!

― alext (alext), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:14 (twenty-three years ago)

£12 for shepherd's pie Blimey, you can get a shepherd for that up here.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:16 (twenty-three years ago)

i was hoping someone would defend refurbs. this is not a good start

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Isabel feels more comfortable in the kind of light, airy non-geezerish surrounds of refurb pubs than she does in the more trad boozers. So from that point of view I don't mind them - on the other hand I usually feel less comfortable (until the booze kicks in) and she still doesn't go out to the pub much.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, speaking as a non-geezer I just wish they'd find some way to decorate other than MOR 'good taste' as is insult to my/others' intelligence. If the pubs actually looked like Habitat I wouldn't mind so much, it's the whole looking like 'hmm, what furnishings can we get in bulk from Argos?' that bugs me rotten.

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:32 (twenty-three years ago)

i like non-geeezer pubs -- in fact i have nothing against All Bar Ones! No pub rockist I. it's just that some (OSP for e.g.) seem to mock your existence.

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, I don't think she'd hold them up as great examples of interior design. It's more of an "If I must go to the pub, it's better if it's this sort" attitude - which is not really the kind of demographic breweries want to be aiming for.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree that the way most of these places get done out is pretty tasteless, but the functionality of a refurb pub I do like: better ventilation, lighting etc. Clearly there are times when I want a dark dank corner, but more of the time I fancy a glass of wine and a natter. OK, so clearly I am a GURL...

I like a lot of places in Edinburgh which were refurb / style bar type jobs a few years ago but have rapidly become delapidated: you get the same feeling of slightly down-at-heel comfort that I think the pub rockists are after, but in a slightly smarter context I guess.

― alext (alext), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:40 (twenty-three years ago)

No, not a refurb rockist, would love a le Courboisier theme pub.

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the Embassy Bar on Essex Road for this reason, Alex. But that kind of comfortable scuffedness can't work in bright light. Or can it?

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Light does not mix well with bouze (it makes it go orf). Time and place for everything of course and I am not anti-refurbs in general. But most refurbs are not aimed at me, I am they decided, going to go to the pub anyway. The idea of big windows is that people can see that it isn't scary from the get go. The problem with big windows is that you can't be scary on the inside for fear of people outside seeing you and calling ver police.

I am increasingly of the attitude that I can tell wht a pub will be like from its font.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:50 (twenty-three years ago)

do you mean front or font there?

― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I think he means font and I think he's right (those awful sans serif ones which herald a cheap barrification, cf: the Pint Pot, and the Pint Pot (as was)).

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 28 November 2002 13:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Phwoarrgh, a Le Corbusier pub would be ace. All whitewashed walls, white wood floor, big white leather sofas that would get comfier with age. Only white drinks? The only flower he'd have in his house was a fake tulip that was spraypainted. Guess which (non)colour?

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:00 (twenty-three years ago)

haha white drinks

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha white Russian milkshakes for all!

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:13 (twenty-three years ago)

the refurbishment of the mitre HURTS MY HEART!

― katie (katie), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:16 (twenty-three years ago)

"haha white drinks"

Tim you are FEEEELTHY. And so am I.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:18 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know what you mean.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:20 (twenty-three years ago)

If the pubs actually looked like Habitat I wouldn't mind so much, it's the whole looking like 'hmm, what furnishings can we get in bulk from Argos?' that bugs me rotten.

Ahhh! Arrghoos - the genius Lithuanian designer.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:24 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a pub in Camden (near Woolworths) that had live football on a big screen, in about May 1998, just before the World Cup in France - said pub got converted into a waste of space yuppie mediterranean bar - what a stoopid decision !

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:24 (twenty-three years ago)

http://static.sky.com/images/skymovies/pics/1086032.jpg

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.richard-e-grant.com/Sightings/ArgosDailyTelegraph-1.jpg

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Argos Rules!

I don't drink much, but I only like pubs that look like pubs i.e the ones my dad would track down from his good beer guide for us to have lunch in when we were on holiday (I think so he could try some local brew that he hadn't tried before). Wooden floor, wooden tables, odd chairs, beer mats...you get the picture.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:41 (twenty-three years ago)

*splutters*

You're foiled Bastoord, I had no coffee to sprinkle over the keyboard.

I have a mattress and a music centre from Argos, which my friend's Polish dad refers to as 'Agros' (pron. 'aggro') due to hassle and deep Cold War-ness of shopping there (and was prisoner in Siberia, so should be able to tell us a few things about gulag style).

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 28 November 2002 17:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I refuse to ever shop at Argoos ever again after it started it's Christmas advertising campaign last year in what felt like June (but was probably september). I hate that.

Hang on, where did the thread go?

― lol p xx, Thursday, 28 November 2002 18:05 (twenty-three years ago)

The trendification of pubs along the Cowley Road in Oxford, like, rilly rilly sucks. They've even "revamped" The New Inn which used to be a groovy watering hole frequented by Supergrass amongst other Oxonian indie types way back when but is now - yes, you guessed it, a trendy wine bar.

― chris sallis, Thursday, 28 November 2002 19:12 (twenty-three years ago)

mitre in cambridge thirded. i couldn't believe it when i went back and saw that; added to the earlier efforts on the baron/brath ale house etc etc. but the mitre actually hurts, still. if they do something like that to the maypole i'll neevr go back to cambridge again.

― toby (tsg20), Thursday, 28 November 2002 20:59 (twenty-three years ago)

would love a le Courboisier theme pub

do you mean a le courvoisier theme pub?

cor--boozier.

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 28 November 2002 21:31 (twenty-three years ago)

shld hv bn:

cor--boozy, eh?

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 28 November 2002 21:38 (twenty-three years ago)

refurbs are better bcz b4 the pub was not so modern

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 November 2002 23:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Putting pork scratchings into plastic bags is refurbishment enough for me.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 28 November 2002 23:46 (twenty-three years ago)

as long as they go nowhere near my mouth i am content

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 November 2002 23:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark pork scratchings are like funfur you can EAT!

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 29 November 2002 00:21 (twenty-three years ago)

what are "scratchings"?

― geeta (geeta), Friday, 29 November 2002 06:48 (twenty-three years ago)

deep-fried pig scabs

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 29 November 2002 09:16 (twenty-three years ago)

http://web.bham.ac.uk/s.m.stocks.cen/Scratchins/PubOriginal.jpg

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 29 November 2002 09:30 (twenty-three years ago)

You're wrong Mark. They're roasted pig scabs.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Friday, 29 November 2002 09:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I like a lot of places in Edinburgh which were refurb / style bar type jobs a few years ago but have rapidly become delapidated

alext please name names.....

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark, pork scratchings are like funfur you can EAT!

If they were served in this they would be much more appealing.
http://users.ntr.net/~pslover/furcup.jpeg

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:21 (twenty-three years ago)

alext please name names.....

For example Iguana was the height of 'cool' when it opened when I was a 3rd year (?) student; but now compared with the awful Baluga or any of the horrors that lurk North of George St. (Ricks et. al.) it is a positive haven of falling apart-ness. (cf. The Basement, Bar-roque, and most of all The Outhouse on or off Broughton St.) Admittedly not to everyone's taste I suppose, but given 'pub' in Edinburgh is often taken to mean 'Three Sisters' or 'Frankensteins', it's not a bad bet. I'm often horribly unfair to Edinburgh pubs though, and there are some decent ones, even centrally (Jolly Judge, Black Bos, Cloisters, erm that might be it). But I still reckon that for a city noted for its drinking possibilities it lacks a certain something.

― alext (alext), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:33 (twenty-three years ago)

haha coffeecups w.fur inside them are not unknown in my own abode: oh no!! my crockery is influenced by meret oppenheimer!! oh no!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes. I meant font.

(Hence I can also tell from the front since that's where the font is).

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Do you mean pubs which are refurbished churches Pete?

― alext (alext), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Alext you took me to Frankensteins!

I do agree from my ltd experience that many Edinburgh bars have a kind of winning second-rateness to them.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:48 (twenty-three years ago)

No (though the one in Muswell Hill is a rotter). I mean the font in which the name is written on is in.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 29 November 2002 11:49 (twenty-three years ago)

But that was for lunch on a Saturday!!!!!!! Any port in a storm. (Although the hen party were most amusing, and I trust you are at this moment designing T-shirts for Isabel's hen night...)

― alext (alext), Friday, 29 November 2002 12:02 (twenty-three years ago)

"Bar Roque" (roqueists!) and especially "The Outhouse" are extraordinary names for boozers.

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 29 November 2002 12:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Unfortunately Tim they're not that extraordinary as boozers.

Blimey the thought of 2 ILx'ers in 'Frankensteins' is a weird one - that pub is just so fuckin casual/loud_crap_music/sports_on_big_screen megapub naff, in spite of all its great horror movie artifice, I can't associate it with this place......er, hold on.......

*sigh* Edinburgh is an awkward place if you hate both trendies and schemies.
(It's just 'Baroque' I thought, alext? - I'll need to have a closer look next time I walk round the corner haha.....)

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Friday, 29 November 2002 19:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I assumed that Jerry had made that furry cup himself with Photoshop. Who would have thought that thanks to technology and the joy of kittens that an art movement as passé as surrealism would become the art of the people in 2002?

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 30 November 2002 13:11 (twenty-three years ago)

He has made the furry cup, but has he drunk from it?

― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 30 November 2002 22:16 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

On BBC4 in five minutes, there's a Timeshift about how pubs have changed over the last 50 years.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Did anyone else see it? Some completely brilliant footage, esp. the old guy in the uneconomical pub, and the go-go dancing in the 70s fun pub.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 8 October 2004 05:33 (twenty-one years ago)

There is a Pub in East Dulwich which has been half refurbished - The front half is all pine furniture, white walls and modern art. The back half is pub carpets, victoriana, shabbiness. It strikes me that this might be a successful approach to not alienating the older locals whilst getting yr more affluent newcomers in.
Its called the CPT/Crystal Palace Tavern, depending on which side you go in.

― Bidfurd, Friday, 8 October 2004 09:08 (twenty-one years ago)

There was a drinking establishment here that was done up and renamed 'Fu-bar', which I always thought was rather ironic.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 8 October 2004 09:13 (twenty-one years ago)

N that programme sounds great, i guess it'll get the usual ten repeats in the next week?

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 8 October 2004 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

ah yes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/listings/programme.shtml?day=monday&filename=20041011/20041011_2230_4544_37862_40

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 8 October 2004 09:19 (twenty-one years ago)

They had this CAMRA guy bemoaning the 70s trendification of pubs, particular vitriol being reserved for one that was kitted out as a pineapple.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 8 October 2004 09:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish I were old enough to remember the Fun Pub. It sounds a horrific concept.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 8 October 2004 09:28 (twenty-one years ago)

But yeah, this old guy in the the early 70s, sitting in this tiny, medieval-looking pub earmarked for closure, was such amazing footage. I remember there being a pub near where my grandparents used to live in remote mid-Wales, that from my parents' description sounded similar. Jug of beer on the counter, rather than pumps!

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 8 October 2004 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Hang on, isn't Rowan Pelling the editor of clean mac brigade favourite The Erotic Review? Or am I getting her confused with someone else?

― RickyT (RickyT), Friday, 8 October 2004 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah that's her - but she's left The Erotic Review now.

ooh there's some bloke with my name on this programme too - who is Pete Brown and what does he know about pubs?

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 8 October 2004 12:30 (twenty-one years ago)

he'd be the bloke who wrote "man walks into a pub"

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 8 October 2004 12:33 (twenty-one years ago)

What an absolute Dud - this has happened to one of the pubs local to me. It is called "The Old Golf Tavern", looks out on to a golf course and is - shock - old. It was a classic little pub in the form you would expect. It closed for a refurb, and now is the Old Golf Tavern with a stainless steel island bar, parquet floor, plasma screens everwhere and sells shitty cocktails and stuff and no decent beer.

― ___ (___), Friday, 8 October 2004 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Other Pete Brown talked an awful lot of nonsense, I'm afraid.

Rowan Pelling was still being captioned as Erotic Review editor. Her parents owned a pub, and she was cross about the brewery ripping out all the real Victorian fittings in the early 80s and putting in Victoriana themed fittings in their place.

It was a treat to see the Hofmeister 'Follow the Bear' ads again.

I had no idea that off licences were only invented in the 1960s, too.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 8 October 2004 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)

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