My son drove down to spend the Christmas period with us yesterday.
Against my better judgement, himself and Mrs TFE decided we should nip out to the pub for a drink or two. (TFE, never one to allow drink to escape his lips) I had to reluctantly agree to accompany them.
I have known that for some time that there has been such a thing as a beer duty escalator, but when I bought the first (and only) round, I realised that the pub had found some way of engineering the escalator to approach the speed of light.
I’d ordered two pints of bitter and a glass of Pinot Grigio and pulled out a tenner from my wallet, (The moths had left it alone thank God) and expected the damage to be around the £8 mark.
FFS, you could have knocked me down with a packet of pork scratchings. The till rang up £13.30 (They don’t actually ring up these days, just have a smug smirk).
I know that publicans have been hit by the smoking ban, but surely they’re not going to attract customers in, for that sort of price.
We just had the one drink and left. So Mr Publican, I can get absolutely bladdered on decent whisky at home for the same price. Why do I need you? Your business model is I think, fatally flawed.
Times are hard, therefore customers will adjust their drinking habits to suit.
PS. What about a smoking shelter?
