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Thread: Chain pubs - your views?

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    Glass Half Empty General Staal's Avatar
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    Default Chain pubs - your views?

    How do you feel about the big chains? Went out for a drink with Soupy last night, only to discover that Sizzling are encroaching on my area from the west with three pubs falling into their hands.

    I am not overly keen on Sizzling, but one pub that looks about to fall to them was actually quite nice.

    I am also not keen on most Wetherspoons, but, on the whole am quite attached to Ember.

    Do you think that chains are destroying the quirky local, replacing them with soulless clone pubs, or are they the saviour of real ales by bringing them to the mass market?

    I am undecided...

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    Official PG MILD tester Soup Dragon's Avatar
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    Don't M&B own Sizzling, Ember, Vintage and a few others? The Drum was simply being converted from one M&B chain to another!
    MILD:

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    Glass Half Empty General Staal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soup Dragon View Post
    Don't M&B own Sizzling, Ember, Vintage and a few others? The Drum was simply being converted from one M&B chain to another!
    Still have different 'personalities'. Anyway, you have not answered the question. And you have not reviewed the pubs from last night. I have just reviewed the Plough and Harrow in Mere Green.

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    Official PG MILD tester Soup Dragon's Avatar
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    sorry, mate - just off to do a couple of pubs, then shifnal tomorrow!
    MILD:

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    I'll stay on me own Alesonly's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soup Dragon View Post
    Don't M&B own Sizzling, Ember, Vintage and a few others? The Drum was simply being converted from one M&B chain to another!
    Yes your right M & B own them and a lot more awful Pubs as well all listed below which I borrowed of there own web site. The only ones I use out that lot is Nicholson's very Occasionally In my opinion M&B are one of the worst Chains for wrecking good Pubs even worst than G/K



    At a glance Our brands & formats Brands & formats overview

    Alex, All Bar One, Browns, Classics, Community pubs, Crown Carveries, Ember Inns, Harvester, Hollywood Bowl, Innkeeper's Lodge, Metro Professionals, Miller & Carter, Music bars Flares, Reflex & Babylon, Nicholson's, O'Neill's, Premium Country Dining Group, Scream, Sizzling Pub Co, Toby Carvery, Town pubs, Village Pub & Kitchen, Vintage Inns
    Last edited by Alesonly; 17-07-2010 at 01:32.
    Don't You just hate Pubs that say
    ( We don't stock any Real Ales as theres Just no call for it.)

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    Official PG MILD tester Soup Dragon's Avatar
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    Thanks Alesonly - it doesn't make pretty reading does it

    I dont have a problem so much with gastroy-chainy pubs, it is just the fact that in some areas - Solihull and Sutton for example - they are rammed out with them and the little local/town pub has gone
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    Pussy Galore No 1 Oggwyn Trench's Avatar
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    Bankss ruined a lot of pubs round here in the 80s and 90s when it was expanding , most of them are now souless barns .

    Brunning and Price are a decent chain though they are now owned by the same group who own the Frankie and Benny resturant chain , most of there pubs stock at least 6 real ales mostly local and the food is usually locally sourced and high quality .
    Theres a Man with a Mullet going Mad with a Mallet in Millets !

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    Brunning and Price are part of The Restaurant Group, who as well as Frankie and Benny's and Garfunkel's were also responsible for the dreadful Blubecker's chain. Notice the faux-American names. Blubeckers, like the others, was perfectly suited to ring-road retail parks, but perfectly hopeless in rural villages. The one near us lasted about a year. However in a brilliant example of scales falling from corporate eyes they've walked away from Blubecker's completely and converted them to the B&P format, branded Home Counties Pub Restaurants, and they're not at all bad.

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    Old & Bitter oldboots's Avatar
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    Probably the only thing that can be said in their favour is you know (roughly) what you're going to get, they all have the corporate look and style and presumably their own target customers which is why M&B rebrand to another in their "portfolio" if the current one doesn't pull in enough 18-30s or family diners or whatever. I hate almost all pub chains with avengence, 'spoons is ok because of price and the range of ales but then maybe I'm in their target group however I still don't go in a 'spoons unless there's no better option. The best pub group I know is Market Town Taverns but they've only got about a dozen pubs.

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    Fully paid up beer belly Farway's Avatar
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    Round here there are a few chain pubs, but generally I think they are much better than some of the grot holes they replaced. I suspect the "Golden age" of wonderful local pubs, with a happy "mine host" & buxom barmaids are just a folk memory, the reality for many was a surly guv'nor, flat or bad beer and bag of crisps if you were lucky

    Turning them into a Harvester etc was a boon for many a customer, and whilst CAMRA & co may not be happy, the profits speak for themselves

    That said, I have just returned from a trip to Portsmouth & Southsea, never went in a chain pub, had great pints in 2 with a lovely home made chicken curry in another washed down with Isle of Wight brewed ale, all locals and independent

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