Table service in pubs is an abomination

This is not some faux-laddish paean to functional alcoholism. This is Ben Sixsmith arguing that the sedentary-isation of pubs is not the way forward.

Three men in an Oxford pub, 1938 (Photo: Kurt Hutton)

When I think back over my life, I realise that a lot of its happiest moments have been spent hanging around bars, and not just bars in the sense of establishments but in the sense of the objects themselves. 

Hell, some of those good times have been spent hanging from bars – but I am not trying to write some faux-laddish paean to functional alcoholism here. I’m not just talking about drinking. I’m talking about chatting with the most random of strangers, and debating what music should be played, and warbling discordantly through karaoke.

I’m talking about chatting with the most random of strangers … or warbling discordantly through karaoke

When I came to Poland, where I am fortunate enough to live, the first real friend I made was a barman. Nearly seven years on, he is still my best friend. He introduced me to all the locals, who introduced me to other people, in a sort of charming social chain reaction. That is the power of the bar.

Why do I bring this up? Well, according to YouGov, a majority of Britons now prefer table service in pubs. A horrifying 52% of British pub-goers claim to favour this. “Pub-goer” is, of course, an ambiguous term. It could mean someone who goes out drinking every week or it could mean somebody who popped into a pub three years ago for Brian’s leaving do. No doubt a sizable proportion of the latter demographic do not really like pubs and want them to become restaurants. But it is still a monumentally depressing figure.

In the Cafe, Jan Moerman, 1891

For me, a pub with table service is a contradiction in terms. You might as well claim to expect paella in an Italian restaurant. You might as well demand to see the Eiffel Tower in Rome. A pub is a public house. It is not a place for different people to occupy different places in a rigid, sterile balkanised manner. It is, at least to some extent, a communal space: a place to meet people, and not only the people you expected to meet.

Of course, we can blame some of this feeling on lockdowns. The COVID-19 pandemic understandably encouraged risk aversion. This attitude has become less understandable by the day. “Social distancing” is in danger of becoming the status quo – a neurotic bias towards atomisation. So, the absurd practice of wearing masks in pubs and restaurants until one is seated may have caused Britons to imagine some kind of protective bubble around themselves.

SEE MORE: I Saw the Best Scarves of My Generation Destroyed By Neglect

But we cannot blame lockdowns entirely. For years, spontaneity has been seeping out of public life. Once, for example, people might have met romantic partners at pubs, or dances, or other breeding grounds of local community. Now, more often that not, people size one another up on dating apps. If you have had success with them then more power to you but everything I have heard suggests that they inspire a lot of stilted conversation and unenthusiastic sipping. 

There’s an app for everything now. There are even apps for taking orders from the bar. Such apps – pioneered, of course, by Wetherspoons – must be valuable for clients with kids or limited mobility. Of course, there are some cases where table service is appropriate. But their main reason for existing is efficiency. An app cuts down on time spent waiting. Well, I’m no big fan of waiting, or of paying more than I could, but the last place to demand the utmost efficiency from is pubs.

An Irish pubman at John Mullet’s bar in Dublin, 1953. (Photo: Bert Hardy)

I want the Home Office to be efficient. I want the supermarket to be efficient. But if I go to the pub then I am not focused on optimising time and expenditure. If I was, I would not go to pubs in the first place. A supermarket can be run like a machine, because you want to go in, get your stuff and leave as quickly as possible. Applying the same dynamics to a pub sucks out the soul.

This might seem like a small thing to get annoyed about. In a time where pubs are disappearing like red squirrels, a pub with table service is better than no pub at all. That is true. People can still meet their friends and drink. But something is being lost. Table service in pubs is one example of how Western societies are becoming more atomised and alienating spaces, with less room for chance encounters, and unplanned merry-making, and anything which is not organised and utilitarian. “In England,” wrote Martha Gellhorn, “When you want to find out how people are feeling, you always go to the pubs.” So, here is our answer: divided, impatient and a little lonely.

Another one, please, barman. I need to wash this taste out of my mouth.

• Want to write for us? We’re looking for the best British arts and the people that make it, from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Have a look at our pitching guidelines.