With everyone distracted by shoddy pints of Guinness and the rising cost of a beverage, no one has been talking about the real problem facing Britain’s pubs… until now. That’s right, we’re talking about queues.
It seems punters have decided to ditch traditional pub etiquette in favour of something a bit more civilised, and people are not happy about it. Enter: @QueuesPub, an account on Twitter (or X, if you’re Mr Musk) dedicated to eliminating single-file queuing at pubs across the county. Yep, that’s right – rather than spreading out across the bar shoulder to shoulder, people are waiting to order their drinks in a single-file line. Ridiculous, we know.
Of course, Brits are famous for their natural instinct to queue in neat lines – but pubs and bars were always, traditionally-speaking, the exception. The account’s description reads: ‘A campaign to end the recent phenomenon of queuing single file in pubs. We queue for the bus or for the checkout, not at bars’. It urges fellow Twitter users to send in photos of overly orderly pub queues and people have already responded with snaps in pubs from Scotland to Cornwall.
For those people today that say that single file queuing is not happening, I invite you to look at the media section on my timeline.
— pub_queues (@QueuesPub) July 28, 2023
London, Leeds, Manchester, Cornwall, Scotland, Liverpool, and loads more
Traditional pubs, small pubs, big chain pubs
How is this pic normal?! pic.twitter.com/BEVjoR1lzh
Speaking to the Guardian, the account’s owner Rod Truan blamed Covid restrictions. He said: ‘It’s like a hundred years of tradition have been swept away overnight. It’s unique to British pub culture that when you go to the bar, you meet new people, you have conversations, you have banter, it’s about public spirit, and that makes it worthwhile.’
But how do staff feel about it? One bartender recalled a time guests queued in an orderly fashion, telling the account: ‘It's easier to serve the free-for-alls [as] you can pour 2/3 orders at once. Orderly business slowed down the whole affair.’
Another tweeted:
A great response by @ThebreweryT Westhoughton
— pub_queues (@QueuesPub) July 29, 2023
A fine pub by all accounts! https://t.co/dHT1GYRT5K
Not everyone is a fan of the free-for-all though, with one user saying: ‘I hate fighting to get served at a bar. I've always hated it. I was happy to see the back of it’. But for those of us that enjoy the sociable chaos of a proper pub queue, justice may soon be served.
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