Busy, busy, busy

 We've been musing, of late, about the "crisis in pubs" news that keeps cropping up.

The fact that so many pubs are closing at the moment is really sad and more so when it's due to money-grabbing pubCo organisations who are just selling for the real estate.

But is there really a crisis in the licensed trade?

I know that we're a particular class and age of drinker and that we're really particular about what we drink but, almost without exception, the places we generally drink have been busy.  Really busy.

Even in January, the usual gloom and doom "everyone is doing dry January" time - place were heaving.  True enough, a lot of people were drink low/no alcohol beers but the places themselves were absolutely not empty.

We drink pretty much any day of the week in pubs/taprooms, etc

We also drink early - we tend to go for our beer around 4.30pm and leave again by about 7pm.  But, so it seems, does everyone else!

In Bristol it's really noticeable but even in Eastbourne, the places we go aren't usually empty.

Since we arrived in Bristol we've been to:

Monday - BarleyMow, arrived at 4.30pm - most seats taken by about 5.30pm

Tuesday -  4.45pm Tried the Kings Head - rammed, went to Cornubia:  Hugely busy, people sitting outside, high stools only seating available and we nabbed the last two.  Still busy when we left after 7pm.

Wednesday - Marthas - 5pm.  Very busy - only seats on the communal table available.  Still busy when we left.

Thursday - Royal Oak.  Not very busy until a group of students (ladies' rugby team, possibly) turned up.  About 15 or so of them.  This pub was the outlier.

Friday - Moor Brewery Tap.  Pretty busy by the time we arrive around 5pm, got busier and then was still busy when we left.

Saturday - BarleyMow, arrived at 5pm and not a seat to be had initially, people standing, people sitting outside.  We sneaked a "BasketMakers" seat without too much difficulty.  Still busy when we left at 7.00pm

He and I flit between irritated that our favourite places are no longer quiet at the times we used to like to go there and delighted that these great places are seemingly so healthy.  Lets hope their balance sheets show the same thing.

I come back to the thought, even though it could be a bit uncharitable, that good places, which are well run seem to be sustaining their trade.  Other than property sell off motivations - is it the less good places that are closing?

I think the problems besetting breweries are somewhat different.  These are less about just the trading and more about the business model and the capital investment that has to be managed.  Marthas tell us that their tiny brewery is doing better than expected; Moor tells us that they own their building and kit and so aren't at the mercy of rent rises, etc.

I'm not saying it's easy to run a beer business - but I also don't think that it isn't possible to run a good one at the moment.