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Comment by t-3

21 hours ago

Bars and pubs aren't really competing against the store or restaurants, they're competing against you drinking alone or with only close friends. If stepping in to have a beer and shoot the shit would cost a significant chunk of a day's wages, you just won't do it, but if I can buy more beer with an hours wages than I can drink in an hour, it's not a bad time.

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t-3

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iso1631  21 hours ago

Weatherspoons charge under £3 for a pint in town. That's 15 minutes at minimum wage.

Beer was far more expensive 25 years ago - £1.60 in 2000 in the student pub when I first started buying my own beer, that was about half an hour at minimum wage.

On the cost side: Wages are higher, energy costs more, rent is higher (because if the pub can't operate the owner can get planning permission to convert it to a private dwelling and sell it for £600k rather than making £12k a year in rent)

On the demand side: People are healthier and drink less. It's nowhere near as acceptable to go out for a few pints at lunch time. People can't drive to a rural pub.

  • messe  20 hours ago

    > Weatherspoons charge under £3 for a pint in town. That's 15 minutes at minimum wage.

    Yeah but then you've to drink at spoons.

    • jhbadger  11 hours ago

      The thing is, they've purchased so many historic pubs, that if you refuse to drink at one that's a choice. I'm not saying that's a terrible choice, but it's a choice that bars you from an awful lot of pubs.

  • bodge5000  18 hours ago

    That is spoons though, most pubs are 3-4x that

    • iso1631  6 hours ago

      Most expensive pint I've paid round here was £6, so pubs are about 2x that - about half hour of adult minimum wage, same as spoons charged 25 years ago.

      So how do spoons make a profit?

      The main difference that I see is that they buy cheap properties and thus don't have crushing rents.

      What this page doesn't show is the increase in rent for these buildings.

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