Best Boozer in East Dulwich

[Louisa]

El Pibe if a pub has a loyal and consistent client base and good offers and atmosphere, it shouldn't need to serve food to stay alive. Well I say food, I mean over and above the cheap crap sandwich and behind the bar snacks.

Louisa.

[El Pibe]

Not necessarily true Louisa, in tied pubs beer can actually be a loss leader such are the prices the pub cos sell their booze to the landlords at.

Lots of info here http://www.fairpint.org.uk/

[Millhaven]

Seabag Wrote:

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> Butt, it wasn't always that way

>

> I'll get my goat

>

> *stands up to leave pub*

*wince*

[Jeremy]

Louisa Wrote:

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> Jeremy a Sunday roast may well have been sold in

> pubs which otherwise didn't do food, but most

> people who ate them didn't specifically go to the

> establishment for it.

Again... not what I remember at all. Pub lunches have been "a thing" for a long long time.

But I realise that evening food is a much more recent development, and doesn't always work. It can seem a bit strange to see a couple desperately trying to enjoy a meal while hemmed in on all sides by people necking drinks and shouting.

[El Pibe]

and of course tied pubs are hugely undercut by the likes of weatherspoons who have buying clout, and that's where your 'loyal customers' of old school boozers end up.

So tied pubs HAVE to offer something else to get punters through the door as they literally can't offer a cheap pint.

Food is the obvious, comedy, music nights, quizzes, sports (if the sky licence doesn't cripple you first) hopefully a good atmosphere etc, but all have to be incentives to get the buggers to eat

... or drink wine thinking about it; can you keep a couple of places going single handedly Lou?

[????]

I am old enough to remeber when a Sunday Lunctime session menat getting there bang on at 12 and swift necking before they closed at 2pm with just a few roasties (free) on the bar....and a raffle

[*Bob*]

Isn't it less a case of 'being old enough to remember' and more a case of 'being older and remembering what you did when you were young'?

[aquarius moon]

I remember when the only food you could buy other than crisps/peanuts was a ploughmans lunch.

[El Pibe]

My memory of pubs in the 80s most certainly didn't involve food, but it did involve an awful lot of random violence, give us roast dinner over that any day of the week.....though probably a sunday thinking about it.

[Jah Lush]

???? Wrote:

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> I am old enough to remember when a Sunday Lunctime

> session meant getting there bang on at 12 and

> swift necking before they closed at 2pm with just

> a few roasties (free) on the bar....and a raffle.

And then the horrible wait until opened again at seven.

[Millhaven]

There was a pub on Meeting House Lane, Peckham (the road down the side of the police station) Havelot Arms (I think that is how it was spelt). Anyway, they used to have the most amazing *free* bar food on a Sunday. You could get every kind of seafood including and I kid you not, caviar and escargot. It was there that I first experienced both those particular foods. But they also did the traditional bar food like roast spuds and prawns and whelks.

Also used to have a chappy touring the pubs of East Dulwich and Peckham selling seafood stuff like jellied eels (yuk!) and roll mops and what have you. You don't see those guys anymore. Another pub tradition gone by the wayside.

[El Pibe]

I've seen them, but not in theose here parts

hmm, strikethrough doesn't work well on an e

[numbers]

The Gowlett was always my favourite. Not in ED mind.

[Louisa]

El Pibe I could single handedly drink a pub dry so I think any boozer in trouble that what's to offer me a good time get in touch, you'll be back in profit within a day! Jeremy yes pub lunches have always been a thing, but again, it was a very limited menu of mostly sandwiches maybe a pasty. Sunday was always the day for food, free roasties nuts crisps and prawns at the bar. You can't even stand at the pub in half these poncy ED pubs these days, let alone have a munch on some free food! And yes Millhaven fond memories of the travelling fishmonger popping in with lots of seafood in little pots with salt and vinegar yum. Anyone else remember the guy in the stand alone van outside the a Kings on the Rye pub/nightclub throughout the 80s?

Louisa.

[Jah Lush]

Yeah, I do. Also for a while during the 80s there was a seafood stall outside the EDT.

[Jeremy]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> Isn't it less a case of 'being old enough to

> remember' and more a case of 'being older and

> remembering what you did when you were young'?

Not really... more a case of debunking this idea that only new-fangled pubs serve food, and back-in-the-day you could only get a pint of mild and a punch in the face.

Clearly remember sunday roasts and family friendly pub gardens in the mid-80s. I guess that sort of behaviour hadn't reached South London (or Stevenage) yet.

[El Pibe]

oh no, food was there (bad roasts, prawn cocktails etc), in the fox or the chimnies, it's just my family weren't really pub goers, and by the time I started frequenting them it was only to get drunk, hopefully laid, but far more likely to spectate someone getting their teeth knocked out or dragged across the car park under a car.

From what I gather that's still pretty much par for the course in Stevenage, but Hitchin has somewhat gentrified.

Letchworth barely even *had* a pub until I left it!!! (old quaker town, peaceful folk, but stickinthemuds when it came to boozing)

[*Bob*]

Not the food thing, Jez. More the sitting-around-in-a-pub-all-day thing.

I remember the food thing exactly as you do: the family went down the pub on a Saturday for a meal, no change to now.

The main change was that - back then - the men would also often go down the pub just with each other three (or four) other nights of the week as well.

[Otta]

I should have copyrighted that photo.

Louisa, whilst I basically agree with your taste in a pub, the fact it that they just can't afford to stay open anymore without doing food or something to bring extra cash in.

As I said earlier, the only reason the Castle is doing well now is

1. They inherited lots of custom from closed / changed places.

2. They are the only place around that stretch to watch football.

Reopen the CPT, Uplands, and old mag and they'd just be sharing those customers.

[Jeremy]

And the Foresters and Goose and Granite!

(both of which did food, btw)

[nashoi]

Hermits Cave doesn't serve food (though it did try briefly some years back), nor does Stormbird, so it is still possible you just need the right demographic

[Millhaven]

Can't remember the Foresters doing grub. erm...Goose and Granite sounds familiar but I am not quite remembering where that was. Wasn't the old Heaton Arms was it?

[nashoi]

It's what the Plough got called for a while.

[Seabag]

???? Wrote:

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> I am old enough to remeber when a Sunday Lunctime

> session menat getting there bang on at 12 and

> swift necking before they closed at 2pm with just

> a few roasties (free) on the bar....and a raffle

Loved those times too ????'s

Meat raffle, a few snacks a look at the landlady's crepe cleavage all dangling with sovereigns

Yep, they were the proper Sunday boozer days

[Millhaven]

nashoi Wrote:

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> It's what the Plough got called for a while.

Ah..Thank you, yes of course.