Thanks, Brighton Bandstand. This is what the pub looks like.
This is a pub that probably actually refers to itself as a ‘gastropub’. It is of pure early-Noughties heritage, opened late 2009. A schizophrenic selection of signs on the outside, including one with italicised Happy Eater-style typography, reflects a poorly-conceived approach to branding that its sleek London compadres, rich on their new diet of post-foam earthiness, would baulk at. But the lure of hefty pine tables and big windows remains fearsomely strong to those who would probably secretly like to consider themselves the moneyed classes, but in fact make up a slice of the most highly-indebted individuals on the planet. Leveraged, is what they are – which they have in common with the pub itself. It has leveraged this aforementioned bees/honeypot phenomenon against a lazy-but-greedy approach of foisting overpriced, underexciting food on its punters.
Perhaps the aim is to boost their coffers handsomely before anyone comes to their senses, at which point I suppose they’ll have a sit down and think, well, maybe now we can reconsider our pricing and attitude and all-round venality.
But then, maybe they’ll keep flogging £4 pints of Peroni to the helpless masses. Can’t resist that pine, see.