Music in Sam Smiths pubs?

Why would it alientate anyone? I'm thoroughly pissed off with the way that you have to endure canned music in pubs (and to be thought a bit of an oddbod if you object to it). I do enjoy live music, but the idea of being able to go to a pub and be able to talk to my friend/s without having to shout over the din of music is very attractive.

I have heard this too. I regularly visit several Sam Smiths pubs and enjoy the good beer, keen prices and noise-free atmosphere.

Don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, what a superb idea. The thought of visiting a pub where beer and conviviality are the order of the day, with annoying noise relegated elsewhere, is quite appealing.

It might catch on and then I suppose the next radical idea would be to have wood panelling and little seating alcoves in smaller rooms one of which would be for smoking (for the dying moments of smokers in society) and the rest not.

Drive away ?

If this is true they've got one new customer - me !

In article , MadCow writes

It's not anything to do with that campaign that was going on a while back to fight against some change in the licensing laws that would make it a lot harder to get a music license?

Or had the Performing Rights people suddenly started billing the chain for the music they had been playing?

Steve

Never mind the lack of music, I'm more concerned about the lack of

*beer*. SS have this bizarre policy of only stocking nitro beer outside Yorkshire (and in quite a few pubs *inside* Yorkshire.). Given that traditional beer is their unique selling point you'd tink they'd make the most of it.

Best regards, Paul

-- Paul Sherwin Consulting

Bad choice of phrase there Steve :)

KeithS

My understanding is that they don't want to pay for the required new entertainment license for their pubs. They have a reputation for being extremely tight-ar*ed and this is just another example of it.

Well, they *do* come from Yorkshire :)) KeithS

They do real ale at most of their central London pubs which I've been to.

Lack of intrusive noise is a Good Thing. I once had the misfortune to go to some hellhole a few doors down from The Chandos, a Sam Smith's place in Trafalgar Square. It was so loud we had to write down our order for the barmaid to read, and we soon left for the more civilised Chandos.

In article , Steven Pampling writes

Oh, you've been to their Cittie of York in Holborn, have you Steve?

No, the Murenger in Newport (Sth Wales) has SSOB on tap; but the King William in Bristol doesn't. Dunno why, I'd have there'd be more demand for RA in Bristol.

Most of the SS pubs in London *don't* serve real ale, which is incomprehensible given that some ot them do, so they obviously deliver cask beer to London.

The SS pub in Oxford (Three Goat's Heads) used to serve cask but hasn't for several years, again for no obvious reason.

Best regards, Paul

-- Paul Sherwin Consulting

I seem to recall that they did serve real ale when the pub first reopened as the King William, but that it then disappeared, presumably due to some brilliant Sam Smiths management decision.

Cheers

Blackfire band website :

Bristol & District Campaign for Real Ale :

The "Red set" ones do - Chandos on Trafalgar Square, Lyceum on the Strand, Cheshire Cheese on Fleet St - but it's such a nasty beer (and could only be relied upon to be in good nick at the last of these - 5 year old information), I have trouble summoning enthusiasm to go there. Even at

Surely the point is more that they have decided they want a "Sam Smith" pub to have a certain character wherever it be found. If I see a pub, while in an unfamiliar part of the country, and it has their name on it, I know what to expect. As there are already lots of musicful pubs in the areas in which they trade, they want to serve those of us who would prefer the loudest noise in the pub to be the din of conversation. Given that Weatherspoon's have made a great profit trading under similar terms, I don't think it is likely to harm the brand.

NB my experience of SS pubs is limited to their London holding, particularly the Briklayers Arms off TCR, the Princess Louisa near Holborn, the Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet St. and the Cittie of Yorke near Chancery Lane

No idea, but it's a policy that will keep me coming back for more, along with their seeming desire to serve bitter at low prices, and to preserve good pub interiors (see the last three of the above for some superb examples).

Robin

Hi Richard,

Back in the mid 80's I recall starting in Dr Thirsty's Surgery drinking his eponymous beer then moving across to the King Willaim Ale House for SS Museum Ale. Happy hours indeed!