I’d been walking past my local for a few nights wondering why the curtains were closed. I assumed that maybe they were closing midweek to save a few quid and put their effort in to the weekend trade. I was wrong. The curtains had closed and so had the bar.
I was pretty devastated.
Most people have an opinion on why pubs are closing faster than ever. Be that cheaper drinks in the off trade, lack of food or even just lack of trade. It’s a subject that turns us all in to wannabe pub land/lords or ladies to start shouting Peggy Mitchel style: “I COULD RUN A PUB!”. We could all do it right? We could run a pub?
Before it closed down in early September, the Crown and Thistle wasn’t a pub I would have called particularly special. It was only little so as soon as you stepped in it was like walking in to a living room with a bar. The beers focused on local craft lager, ales and ciders and you could pay the cost of a pint to get 3 tasting samples instead. This was a pub with charm. The garden was an utter sun trap but was crowded with too many chairs so half the time the seats sunbathed more than any people. There were no televisions so no football or rugby apart from the furious updates someone would shout as they checked their phone.
All of the above pretty much sums up why The Crown and Thistle didn’t stand a chance against its rivals like The Three Daws and The Rum Puncheon. It’s not off the beaten track by any means but it is a pub on a side road outside of the hub of town which didn’t serve food. It (and by it I mean management) lived in a heady day dream where the locals would flock to the pub just because it was so magical.
It wasn’t magical. In fact in the light of day it was a bit of a dump and could have done with a bloody good clean. The owners let the jack-of-a-few-trades-master-of-pretty-much-nothing son look after it and eventually run it in to the ground. It wasn’t looked after and this is what I find the hardest part. It just wasn’t loved enough even by the people who had the most control to change things.
No word of yet as to what will happen to it but I have seen it being stripped of all its beer mats and miniatures. So sadly I bid my local a fond farewell and hope that if it stays a pub the new owners show it some well-deserved love.
.
alittlewine.wordpress.com 