Ousetunes Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 in the hay day of pubs you had a choice of which room to use, i.e on a fri'/sat' night you and the missus would sit in the lounge,sometimes called the best room ( no swearing or such allowed),after work for a few beers with the lads you'd use the tap or smoke room where the rules were a little more relaxed with regard to swearing etc. How I agree with this. My post earlier relates to the electricity bills at the Shiny Sheff near to my house in Lodge Moor. If there were doors to each separate bar area then in the day time when the place is very quiet, they could shut off one room entirely and keep the heat and lighting on in the other room. It wouldn't take much to put in a couple of doors and it would also have the benefit of keeping the cold and the smoke outside caused by smokers constantly popping out for a fag. I lament the loss of pubs with separate rooms, nooks and crannies and their demise continues to have an impact to this day. One reason why I love doing the pubs in York so much is that a good number of them have managed to retain their character (although I hasten to add many of them haven't). The Blue Bell, for example, on Fossgate is a shoebox but it's two rooms, joined by a corridor (and a serving hatch). It serves real ale, has the fire lit whenever you go in and 20 punters makes the place packed out. Closer to home, I mentioned the New Barrack Tavern and we've got the wonderful real ale region around Shalesmoor/Neepsend (Fat Cat, Fagan's, Riverside, Kelham Tavern etc). I believe there are gems still to be discovered and to my eyes at least, it would appear that these pubs are truly beginning to reap the rewards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathom Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 It's not only the pubs that are closing. The city centre is turning into a ghost town meets hell's building site with hardly any shops. If much more stuff closes I may as well leave town! As a country gal the whole attraction of sheffield is pubs and shops! (Well aside from my friends and family obviously) I agree. It's sad. This isn't the Sheffield I loved when I first moved here - loads of shops, character in the city centre, proper pubs, traditional eating places. It's becoming a clone city like Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester which is sad. Chain 'drinking barns', rubbish cafes selling lark's vomit foccaccia 'sandwiches' for four quid a time, nothing but medium sized chain stores in town, constant unnecessary 'redevelopment' which just means 'making more room for Starbucks and Topshop'. Or am I just having an off day? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathom Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 Whilst there are a lot of pubs closing, I wonder how many new pubs and bars have opened in the city centre over the last 10 years - there seem to be 5 times as many as when I used to drink in town (30 odd years ago!). I know quite a lot of people who now go down town rather than use their local - in fact if it wasn't for the students I think pubs round here would struggle. How many of the old traditional 'front room pubs' of Crookes and Walkley are left now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsie Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 It's so depressing - go to any town or city of the UK, and it's all the same soul-less bars and chains - Revolution, Slug & Lettuce, Wetherspoons, Lloyds No 1 - and the suburban locals are all Ember Inns or Brewer's Fayres with ball pools and playgrounds. The pub I used to frequent in my younger years would be packed to the rafters for the quiz night on a Tuesday. Nowadays, there's a handful of couples having steak and chips. If I want food, I'll go to a restaurant, if I want a nice, relaxing drink in a proper pub, where can I go nowadays? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ousetunes Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 , if I want a nice, relaxing drink in a proper pub, where can I go nowadays? Like I say above, there ARE some decent pubs in Sheffield which are located just outside the city centre. The pubs mentioned - Fagan's, Fat Cat, Riverside etc and others such as (the former?) Cask and Cutler, New Barrack Tavern, the Grapes, Dog and Partridge all serve cracking ale in a nice, relaxed atmosphere. They also feel like traditional pubs. They don't appear to be out to fleece you either. The Riverside with its soft leather seats is blissful. The Kelham Tavern has a cracking rear room and beer garden. Go try them; just keep the secret to yourself!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsie Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 Like I say above, there ARE some decent pubs in Sheffield which are located just outside the city centre. The pubs mentioned - Fagan's, Fat Cat, Riverside etc and others such as (the former?) Cask and Cutler, New Barrack Tavern, the Grapes, Dog and Partridge all serve cracking ale in a nice, relaxed atmosphere. They also feel like traditional pubs. They don't appear to be out to fleece you either. The Riverside with its soft leather seats is blissful. The Kelham Tavern has a cracking rear room and beer garden. Go try them; just keep the secret to yourself!! I've been to a few of those places - Fat Cat in particular I thought was a real gem when I discovered it recently - but none of them are that close to me unfortunately, whereas when I was first dipping my toe in the waters of pub-frequenting, there were at least three fine boozers within walking distance of my home Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daftlad Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 But you cannot argue with the fact that the big breweries prior to 1989 had a total monopoly on pubs...like the pub companies do now. The state of the pub industry now is not so much down to government interference, as the greed of the present Pub Companies. remember when the breweries were forced to sell off whole chunks of their estates and free up beer ties, they got some very clever lawyers on the job to protect their interests and simply got some of their own Brewery internal top directors to form 'Pub Companies', and force those pubs to buy beer from the pub co's which were supplied by the original breweries. A cunning move by the Breweries themselves to make sure they could still force tenants to buy beer from them at inflated prices VIA companies which they controlled...... and a situation that the present Govt. has still NOT addressed, but the situation is the same now as it was before 1989 when the Govt. tried to end beer ties IE Most former TETLEY owned pubs are now owned by Punch taverns*, itself formed by various directors of Tetleys and other breweries it bought up. So the situation is the same really, these pubs still have to buy beer from TETLEY, they just changed the name!!! * Pub companies frequently have clear outs of 'pub stock' (probably for some kind of tax loophole) and sell of packages of estate to each other, so some former Tetley houses may now belong to Enterprize, Greene King, Ember Inns, etc....... yes but like we said earlier look how many had to close because of this, plus the breweries as well, there is no Stones or Whitbread brewery in Sheffield anymore. At least we all had a decent choice of pubs in our local area to go to before Thatcher got her claws into it. Now thereare a lot of areas with only one pub where there used to be three or four Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenfleece Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 YATES Wine Lodge on Carver street now up for rent, Laurel Inns appear to be disposing of the ENTIRE YATES CHAIN across the Country....not a good sign http://licensedandleisure.collierscre.com/WebsiteModules/CMS/Uploads/LaurelSalesList030308.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopsie Posted March 5, 2008 Share Posted March 5, 2008 YATES Wine Lodge on Carver street now up for rent, Laurel Inns appear to be disposing of the ENTIRE YATES CHAIN across the Country....not a good sign http://licensedandleisure.collierscre.com/WebsiteModules/CMS/Uploads/LaurelSalesList030308.pdf There's Yates' in York & Liverpool, they seem to be absent from the list. Certainly looks like they're offloading the majority though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soph08 Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Hi, I just started a new thread not realising that this discussion was already going on. If anyone on here would be willing to help me that would be great. Hi, I'm looking to film a short news piece about the number of pubs thar are being forced to close. Whether it is due to the smoking ban or a rise in drinks prices and running costs. If you are a landlord/lady and wouldn't mind me coming to have a chat then I would be very interested to hear from you. I also would like to be able to chat to regulars of pubs that are stuggling. Any help with this would be much appreciated Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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