Renata Pankova: Coffee shops are waking up and smelling the alcohol'

Related tags Public house Coffeehouse Coffee Starbucks

Indeed the article was about city coffee shops seeking ways to attract what the Americans call "late-day" customers. What transfixed me however was...

Indeed the article was about city coffee shops seeking ways to attract what the Americans call "late-day" customers.

What transfixed me however was an almost throw away line, that Starbucks had decided to sell wine and beer at one of its stores in the city. The plan was to see if an attractive early evening trade could be created with a view, it was suggested, to rolling it out to its 7,000 outlets in the rest of the US.

As what begins over there usually ends up over here the article set me thinking. If it was a runner could it be more than our beleaguered pub and bar trade could stand?

I know Publican​ readers have plenty more pressing things to worry about right now but just think about it; it would mean a sudden nationwide surge in the number of premises duplicating what pubs and bars do at the moment.

And bet your bottom dollar this would not just be a Starbucks thing. Every coffee chain in the land would want to get in on the act. Even assuming that by the time it happens here the good times are back I believe there would still be too many outlets pursuing too few punters.

There will also be fewer and fewer of the latter if the neo-prohibitionists continue to demonise alcohol.

Also how will the ordinary drinker react when this happens? By then having suffered years of hectoring and vilifying by the anti-alcohol lobby, how much socially easier it will be for she, or he, to slip into a coffee house for a crafty glass of beer or wine than to be seen entering that den of iniquity, the pub.

For me the biggest problem is that I can see no fit between traditional English pub culture and the modern coffee house. Both have their own places but they shouldn't be merged to produce a commercial mutation.

You may be thinking of course that the licensing laws would make a coffee-house takeover impossible but there is plenty of economic and political muscle, national and international, there, and aided by the every growing neo-prohibitionist lobby who, whatever they say, hate the English pub, anything is possible.

Related topics Legislation

Property of the week

Follow us

Pub Trade Guides

View more