After a pandemic-dictated period of closure, pubs have this week reopened indoors in England and Wales. Some – those that sell mainly beer, with little or no food – have been shut since the first lockdown in March 2020. And some will not reopen at all.
The COVID legal requirement in force in England for periods last year, that you could only drink in a pub if you also had an ill-defined “substantial meal”, also brought into relief the extent to which many modern pubs had already been forced to rely heavily on food for their profits, given that tax is a major element of the cost of drinking.
But the debate also highlighted the persistence of older assumptions and manipulations of the contested role the pub plays in society. As the doors reopen, it is worth thinking about what kind of pub we want, in future.
