Going to the pub has changed: you can’t prop up the bar, move the furniture, stand up or wander around. It’s all about dedicated entry and exit doors, washing your hands and there’s hazard tape everywhere! Thankfully drink and social interaction are still in good supply.
Many people thought (myself included) that the public would be only too happy to return to the pubs on 4 July, but this hasn’t been the case for many places. Pubs are now not just places for a pint, they have to feel safe and give off an air of reassurance to instill a confidence in drinkers that the nastiest thing they are likely to pick up is a thick head the following morning.
Take Burton & South Derbyshire CAMRA’s Pub Of The Year The Devonshire Arms as a prime example. As you walk in the side door you are greeted with Hand Sanitiser (Tasting Notes: slightly runny, alcohol on the nose, very pale, negligible hop aroma) and a friendly smile from Landlord Carl Stout, he shows you to your table and asks what you’d like to drink? Bass, it has to be of course. It is delivered to the table by Barmaid Liz.
“The fear was that the pub wouldn’t be sustainable moving forward,” confesses Carl when asked what was worrying him most about reopening. “You’ve got to be able to make a profit to operate.”
Carl was cautious about reopening, waiting until a few days after 4 July.
“Some pubs were very busy and some were disappointed in the trade on 4 July,” he observes. “For us we’d been closed for just over 100 days and we didn’t feel quite ready. In my experience you’d never go into a new opening on a Saturday. Things were totally new to us and to the customers and we didn’t want to get off to a bad start; we had an awful lot to lose and not much to gain. Okay we were down a Saturday’s takings but it pales into insignificance with how much trade we’ve lost. I didn’t want to damage our reputation for one chaotic weekend.”
The Roebuck and The Coopers Tavern adopted the same approach, both are now open and this is good news for all of the surrounding businesses.
“We’ve got the Station Street community with the Roebuck, The Coopers, The Last Heretic and the Balti Restaurants and it works very well, we all bounce off each other.” That was pre-Lockdown of course; Carl has noticed a change in drinking habits. “Once customers are settled and they are reassured and feel secure in that premises, they seem comfortable to sit there all night.”
“It’s been a big learning curve for us because the way we operate in the pub is totally different than before, it’s very European although we are missing the weather they get in the South of France! That’d make a huge difference.” Carl laughs, we are sat in the newly refurbished Beer Garden, coats are on but it is pleasantly sheltered. “We’ve got five tables here; we also have the option to take over part of the Car Park too with six or seven tables. We want to get the service levels right and when the weather is okay we will give it a go, that’ll give us more flexibility with capacity as we are limited to fourteen tables inside.”
“The footprint of the pub itself is licensed, the Car Park isn’t but providing we take the transactions on the licensed premises then we can serve drinks in there. The government should be encouraging pubs to spill out into Market Squares, like they’ve done in Prague,” reckons Carl, a few days after our chat the sun is out and Car Park is filled with tables and chairs.
The drop in trade has necessitated a few changes to the number of beers being served.
“We’ve slightly reduced our range because the turnover isn’t quite there yet, we can justify having five beers on and we can sell them within three days but if we have to reduce it down to four to maintain the quality then we will. I’ve not got a dark beer on now, we only used to sell it in pins anyway. I didn’t want to take one of my five off for a dark, so I’ve gone for a bottle of Porter or Bramble Stout as a compromise. It’s striking a balance between getting the quality right and the range right.”
Carl’s best seller is Bass, after a national drought it is back on the bar to the relief of his regulars.
“I’ve used the same supplier for years, they tried to order 160 tubs of Bass and couldn’t get any!” Carl exclaims. “I think with the bigger brewers there has been an issue with the Supply Chain. We got hold of some Bass last week but I decided not to put it on, we kept it in the cellar for five or six days, I’m not one for rushing it, it’s all about the quality.”
I can vouch for that, a cracking pint as always.
“There is plenty in the cellar and the more we sell the better it will be. My regular supplier had no Bass for two weeks but some pubs in town had it on, I was scratching my head how they’d got it and then I got a tip off about a supplier in Derbyshire and before you know it we’ve three Nines of Bass on the way.”
Like many pubs you can book a table at The Devvie, and this is advised at busy times, but the rest of the week Carl is happy to accommodate you on an ad-hoc basis.
“We don’t want to disappoint people who turn up on a Saturday, as we may have to turn them away. There were a couple of times in the first days of trading where we came close to that, but as a general rule during the week we will adopt a walk-in approach.”
It is still early days and Carl is the first to admit that he and the staff are learning as they go along, but he remains optimistic.
“We’ve adopted a cautious approach to capacity, following all the Government guidelines, all of our tables are a metre apart, in some cases more, we have the Sanitiser Stations, cleaning as we go … but the important thing is giving people confidence that it is nice and safe and that they feel comfortable.”
I’m certainly happy sat here, can I have another Bass please? I could get used to this table service …