I miss the pub. I miss everything about it.
I actually miss the queue for the bar – that friendly jostle, the meeting of a new person. I also, surprisingly, miss the trendy water decanter to prompt you to take a tactical H2O. I miss the bar staff. I miss that split second feeling of being the most popular kid at school when the barman shouts “hi” or when the manager comes and hangs at YOUR table. I miss the smell of people. I miss the smell of the inside, the heaving lungs of the pub.
God I miss the pub.
The pub is basically a shoulder. A shoulder to lean on, to cry on, to rely on. The pub hug. It embraces everyone- e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e
It doesn’t feel like lockdown, it feels like the worse lock-in. There’s no last orders so you suddenly realise its 2am and your trying to draw a passport in House Party’s Pictionary. Ultimately the booze does end. There’s no nice LL or Manager to tell you to go home. Just a raging partner shouting at you to grow up and come to bed. AND there’s no cleaner.
We set up the app to support our cherished locals. We truly believe they are a vital cog in the community machine. It breaks our heart that coronavirus is threatening that cog, 50% of independent bars, pubs and breweries don’t think they will survive covid19. Venues are being broken in to and looted – some multiple times.
We wanted to help. So it seemed a natural step to fling open our Instagram doors as a Virtual Pub representing ALL our independent venues. Hosting film clubs, pub quizzes, that’s drag bingo and selling bar tabs and a ‘buy an NHS worker a bar tab’ too. It doesn’t fix the raging partner & it’s not the shoulder, but it is a community, it is a virtual cog and we hope it will help our treasured locals.
See you at the (virtual) bar.
Cheers.
