My local (in Leeds) has this system for regulars, where you can buy tokens for the beers-on-tap (three choices, each token is a different colour) at a discounted price – you’ve got a choice of 10, 20 or 50 tokens (the more you get, the bigger the discount). Then behind the bar, there’s cups with the regular’s names on them, and the tokens are in there. So if the regular comes in, they get their regular beer and tell them to take a token from their cup. If it’s a new bar person or they just don’t recognise the person, they may ask for ID (so the ID name matches the name on the cup), to avoid tokens being taken by other people. Once it runs out, they buy more tokens to add to their cup.
I like the system as all the cups behind the bar (they’re vintage cups, all with a name on, around 30) makes it feel like a community pub with lots of regulars. If someone signs up for a new cup (even for just 10 tokens), the bar staff make a bit of a fuss and make it feel like an occasion that a new cup is being added to the shelves.
I’ve personally not seen that at any other UK pub (maybe it’s a regular thing, I’m not very well travelled). It got me wondering what other unique things your local pub does.
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that’s actually really cool
What my pub does is that a man called the landlord says “what do you want chief?” Then he pulls a point and takes money off you.
My one local gives regulars free jukebox credits, rates on pints and large tabs. Also an upstairs sofabed in my case.
There’s another pub that I don’t consider my local but I do stop by for a pint fairly often. There’s a fully intact Edwardian street running beneath it. Also it’s run by the Hells Angels and they used to hold raves in the basement lol
My local closed down because the only people who applied to take it over when the last landlord retired were gay.
That’s pretty unique (and illegal) these days.
We live near Leeds and while it is not anything unique in the sense you have described, we do find some of the ‘local’ country pubs very distinctive.
The Sportsman’s Arms at Wath is the nicest place we have found to eat in Yorkshire- it’s got a really cosy country pub feel and very nice food.
The Harewood Arms at Follifoot and the Greyhound at Saxton are lovely ‘stuck in time’ pubs but they are Samuel Smith.
My local pub has a visually impaired man who visits every single day at 3pm on the DOT. Doors all opened for his arrival, he goes to the same seat which is reserved for him, a pint already on the table waiting for him & the jukebox strictly only allowed to play golden oldies for 1 hour. When he has finished his pint another one is on the table ready and waiting. It’s quite a rough boozer and they don’t need to go to these extents to help this man but they do. And it’s so heart warming.
Dicks chair. There’s a guy called Dick who used to come in and would always sit in the same spot at the bar. He was there every day so this became Dicks chair.
Non locals would come in and sit in it and were told that they need to sit somewhere else. They even got a plaque on the back
Mine ignores the fact that there’s great, locally brewed beverages that are unique, tasty and cheap inand instead goes out their way to spend maybe 3x as much on expensive, imported ones. Maybe this is more common than I’m thinking but it’s a bit of a F U to the local economy to say the least.
The Raby offer a free glassing with every pint purchased.
My local has a microbrewery in the basement, it’s part of a mid sized brewery, and they use the basement to brew some more experimental or trial beers. So they always have some interesting beers on tap
What pub in Leeds is this? Sounds top
not my local but a favourite in my town
they had a massive bottle fridge with 600+ ml bottles of beer for about 75% of the price of a pint. because of the rules of their brewery they could sell whatever bottles they wanted and could source them themselves, only having to buy the draft stuff from the brewery
was always good for a cheaper night if you knew to ask for the bottles, although i think the brewery cracked down on it
One of my locals holds a competition where you try and hit each other with a wet rag on a stick.
I love the token idea… However, I live in one of the parts of the UK where ~£6 is seen as a reasonable price for a pint, so I can’t imagine buying 50 up-front.
My old local (the Bay Horse in Ashburton) sold pork scratchings. Nothing unique there as the little packets were hung up on the wall.
But all the locals in the know asked for the ones from ‘under the bar’ wink wink. And you were give a large unmarked bag.
Best pork scratchings I’ve ever had (and not at all like the ‘special stuff from Royston Vasey, lol).
Another pub was part of a chain, but locals knew that to get the local ale they had to ask for the ‘other Tetley’s pump’ if they wanted it. Funnily enough that landlord ended up sacked and the pub closed when the brewery found out. That and the lock-ins where the landlord went to bed and said ‘just have what you want’
A washing machine
a few years ago, I went to my local and went to buy a pint (some sort of wanky craft IPA). the guy warned me before I bought it that it had ‘a bit of a tag on it’ – it was £6+, this was back in 2017. Never had that experience before and seems quite courteous to warn people in advance.
One of my locals runs a ’boutique’ cinema in their upstairs rooms a few times a week.
My local pub has a free pool table. Only pub I know of that does that
It doesn’t have a coin slot, however it can be hogged to the max lol
Hey OP, my old local in Sydney used to do the same cups/tokens thing! Haven’t thought of it in 5 years, but you’ve unlocked a treasured memory!
When visiting a friend in Brighton, I found out that there is a handful of pubs that have a Toads table. It’s a unique game to the region and the pubs play against each other in a mini-league. There’s nowhere else in the country that has this game which I thought was quite great, and it was a fun game to play too!
They have six Connect 4 sets, for reasons which I’ve never managed to understand. We did once try to put four sets together and play Connect 16, it was a disaster.
Each midwinter, a brewery rep comes round and drowns an outsider in a little mash tun to ensure a good year of beer ahead.
Topless barmaids one night a week
All our local pubs have people that stare at you as you walk in and look you up and down as you look for a table. So nothing unique there.
I did once see a bar that had screens behind it and drinks were like a stock market, and you’d be able to buy drinks cheap when the ‘market’ drops. Was interesting, definitely makes you drink more than you usually would.
In London there was one where the urinals had games where you control a spaceship (or something) and move it left and right to avoid obstacles and get high scores.
Went in one time for a bite to eat, quite busy and I noticed a few people had a few brass instruments with them, dotted around the place, at one point some music struck up and the whole place started playing along, anyone without an instrument was presented with a wooden spoon to join in.
Oldest pub in my city.
Has really good food and local brews.
There’s also an old style bowling alley in the back, ten pin and the smaller ball kind.
Right next to the local park as well so you can get your steps in and end up at the pub.
Local did Belgian beers, complete with each of their specific glass. Have to leave your shoes behind the bar as deposit.
Drank many Kwaks one night I forgot to pick up my footwear in the way out.
Edit:
https://belgianbeers.co.uk/beer-blog/why-is-kwak-beer-served-in-such-a-unique-glass/
For those that don’t know.
Slightly off topic but I did witness something truly bizarre in a pub once. I went for an evening with old work colleagues and this old man came in. He had so many wires and stuff attached to him that it was obvious he was dying of something nasty. He had a stomach tube and I legit saw him order a pint, and then SYRINGE the alcohol straight into the pipe.
Little tvs on the bar taps so you don’t miss any sport. I’ve never seen that anywhere else in my 18 years of drinking.
God I love Reddit, in one post you will hear how alcohol almost ruined their life and the best thing they did was quit drinking and another post let’s talk about pubs.
My local always has the front door locked. To get in you have to ring the doorbell, and they will monitor you on CCTV to decide whether they want to let you in or not. It’s bizarre and very unfriendly. I’m pretty sure they stayed open for their loyal customers over lockdown as well. Luckily there’s a much better place a few hundred meters down the road.
Discounts for members. You pay a subscription (don’t know the price – the wife/kids buy it me for father’s day think it’s £30/year) and you get 50p off/pint with no limit on the amount of times used, plus random members events across the year. It’s great it’s not limited to the card holder so I can lend mine out to friends/family but I tend to only do that so they can buy rounds including me in it rather than take the piss. Makes me feel special too lol & means the wife doesn’t have to come up with anything fancy for father’s day!
I work in a village pub and tabs were getting out of hand – people were getting drunk, forgetting they’d ordered certain drinks by the end of the month and refusing to pay part of them.
Now we have a ring binder for the tabs – each time they get a drink it has to be signed by a staff member, the customer and dated with time. It’s the most admin for a Foster’s possible.
My locals’ karaoke night has a thing called ‘kamikaze karaoke’. If you write your name and ‘kamikaze’ on your slip, the DJ picks random people to pick letters, then a number, and whatever song it lands on, you sing.
One of our locals has a food round for the quiz, they send round a bowl of… something, usually soup-adjacent, and you have to identify every ingredient from water and salt to herbs, spices and particular fruits or meats or veg just from tasting it. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere else that does that
My local runs a pie competition once a year. Locals bake a pie (pastry top, sides and bottom) of any type. Local chefs and last year’s winner judge the pies and come up with the winners. As pies are rejected from the competition they come out for punters to buy a slice of and enjoy with mash and peas. All funds raised go to charity.
We’ve eaten some amazing pies at £3 per slice (some not so good too though!) and around £500 is raised. A wonderful community event that also gets quite nicely competitive!
A few Mancs may recognise what I say if they’re from a certain area.
A good few years back there was a well known pub in a Manc area that was reknowned for being a real rough house. It had more owners than it had beers on tap. Then one owner thought it would be good to get in a stripper to see if it would calm down the lads.
They asked for everyone to take a seat and enjoy the surprise. Next thing a woman totally starkers comes out and goes around the whole pub doing her bit and the lads loved it. He then asked everyone to stay seated and this time it was a treat for the ladies. Out walks a bloke with what everyone thought was an ADSA baguette between his legs, and suddenly pints were thrown and the pub was upside down within seconds.
They stuck to selling beer and getting burned down every so often after that.
A work from the pub package.
For about £15 you can reserve a table for the day and set up your laptop. You get toast or a croissant when you arrive, unlimited coffee or tea throughout the day, a sandwich or salad at lunchtime and a pint delivered to you at 5pm.
Landlady if my local (The Pack Horse in Royston, Barnsley) loves Christmas, so ours has a Christmas tree in the corner all year round. The twist is she redecorates it every few weeks for whatever the next big event is. It’s a Wimbledon tree at the moment. It’s been a summer tree with buckets and spades on, en Easter tree with eggs and rabbits on, a coronation tree with bunting and crowns on, a Halloween tree with witches and zombies etc etc etc. it’s a really fun thing that everyone loves!