Britain lost 400 pubs this year. The ones that survived are selling lunch, not pints
The village pub has become a restaurant with a bar attached. Landlords say it is that or close
The pub at the end of the lane has a thatched roof, a log fire, a dog in the corner and, on a Tuesday lunchtime, 30 people eating. Almost none of them is drinking beer.
Britain has lost about 400 pubs this year, continuing a decline that has run for two decades. The ones that remain have, in many cases, become restaurants with a bar attached, and their landlords say that was the only way.
“Beer pays the rent on Friday night,” said the landlord of a pub in Oxfordshire. “Food pays it the other six days.”
The trade body says energy costs, business rates and the price of beer have combined to make a wet-led pub, one that depends on drink, almost impossible to run outside a city.
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