Service: the next big thing
In these difficult times, something revolutionary is called for to boost trade table service
Andrew Pring, Editor
How was your weekend? Not great, I suspect.
Blame Geldof. For the millions who weren't there, Live 8 was a home-on-the-sofa kind of thing. All day. With plenty of cheap Tesco booze to help the sing-alongs.
Sunday was a recovery zone, plus some tennis thrown in. Who needs the pub at times like that?
Thankfully, licensees aren't up against this kind of telefest every weekend. Normal service will be resumed next week. Trouble is, normal service ain't what it used to be. Sadly, as we know, pub-going as a leisure activity, is on the slide. And although food sales are helping to slow that slide, the long-term trends don't look great.
So, as Vlad Lenin, once asked, 'What is to be done?. Something pretty revolutionary is called for, that's for sure. One answer is certainly to be found in history, or more precisely, the hospitality roots of the trade: table service. You get it in restaurants, and you used to get it in pubs, but not since the days we referred to barmaids as wenches.
Of course, some have tried it in more modern times. Chris Hutt at Wizard was keen, but it never quite worked. Derek Andrew, who's now running that group in his Pathfinder pubs, tells us this week he's giving it a serious go too (see p14).
Let's hope his trials succeed. It would raise the hospitality bar, and force others to follow. And it would take pubs a massive step up to the next level in their evolution.
The costs of extra staffing will obviously be the main barrier to table service. But the benefits to customers should take care of that. After all, which punter wouldn't like to avoid the hassle of queuing and be served where they sit.
Real-ale merchants often argue their product is all that a pub can offer which drinking at home can't. Respect. But for all the joy of a wonderful beer, that's too limited an offer these days. Far better in addition to get people saying: 'Drinking at home is OK. But you don't get served like you do down the pub.
