Comment by iso1631
19 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.
> 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.
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.
isn't weatherspoons like getting drunk at applebees basically? comparing that to a "pub" is kinda laughable
Not really. Applebee’s is still too food oriented.
Wetherspoons are definitely pubs. They just have a reputation for cheap drinks and cheap meals. But there’s still a significant proportion of people who go there for drinks only.
It’s more like a drinking warehouse with carpet on the floor and a menu of mostly beige food than a larger version of a cosy country pub with a roaring fire and a varied food menu sometimes involving vegetables that have not been deep fried.
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I have been to a nice ones, like the one in Exeter (but the owner is from there so that figures); I forgot the other two that were nice. Not many nice ones but they do exist.
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That is spoons though, most pubs are 3-4x that
3-4x £3 a pint? That's £9-£12 which is super expensive - I would say most places are in the £6-£8 region.
Yeh responded to another comment saying the same thing, Im getting confused with rounds. So I am spending £9-£12, but thats buying two pints
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.
One thing I've heard is that they have consistent high throughput so they will buy beer that's closer to expiry and hence cheaper, because they know people will drink it before it goes off.
Dunno how much of an effect that is, it can only account for so much.
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To be fair actually £6 a pint does sound more like it, I think I'm getting confused with rounds (so I most often spend £10-£12, but I'm buying two pints)
Maybe spoons is killing all the pubs.