Rebirth

Yesterday's flier announces that TB will be back in business just about a month after it went out of business (see 13th February). There have been several vans there, not to mention lorries, most days. If we allow a gross of £500 per man per day, 5 men in each of 5 vans, on each of 25 days, we get a grand total of £312,500, the profit on maybe half a million pints of lager. How long will it take them to clock that lot up?

The upper left hand picture could well be the redecorated bar, despite all the vans still being outside. We shall see, in due course, if it really is or whether it is just a lookalike.

I don't know whether Greene King operate grades of pub grub, but some chains certainly do and this offering looks to be reasonably basic, but maybe of good Wetherspoon's style value. One wonders whether, as such, they will seek to refurbish the clientèle as well as the paint: TB was one of the few of what are euphemistically called working mens' pubs left in town and Greene King may aspire to serve some other sort of men, women even. But you chuck out one lot of clients at your peril because it can take a while to find the new ones, to replace what was one community with another - remembering that it has taken the neigbouring 'Cricketers' more than twenty years to get back to being something like a local after the last old-style landlord retired.