Pace and the Movement

Sunday

Sundays have calmed off a lot. We used to just get slammed with food every afternoon as tourists would wander in looking to eat. That's not the case so much anymore. Recently that has started to change, but the weather has been pretty poor of late. That keeps people from just wandering around the area. They go to and do specific things and that's it. When the weather is better you get a lot more people just stopping in. There are also a lot fewer tourists from overseas abroad and less people coming in to shop in London. All the big sales are over and Europeans aren't traveling much at the moment. The groups that are coming in also aren't as big as they have been. Upstairs is a little different though. I've noticed a lot more younger people, say 20's, come in and spend the night talking on the couches or just lounging around. The same is true downstairs, but the groups seem to be a little more diverse at the bottom bar.

Monday

This has become a real slow day at the pub now, both upstairs and down. Downstairs its a little better because you get more people just sort of wandering in off the street. Upstairs things stay pretty constant, and by that I mean slow. We still have the regulars that come in, but that's really not that many people. Food is pretty slow too. Its not so bad though. It provides a nice break from the weekend which is still pretty busy.

Tuesday

This is more the same as Monday. The British people aren't out in any real sort of numbers and neither are the tourists. Even the European ones aren't around much because they'll stay through Monday at most and when Friday is tacked on, they have a long weekend off the Continent. We'll start to see more office workers coming in at this point though. One pattern that has changed a lot since I started has been that people aren't sticking around for as many drinks. I'll see familiar faces that are coming in now only going one and out where as they would have had a couple months earlier.

Wednesday

Things are picking up at steady pace, but things are still pretty slow. Things get a little busier than they had been when I started. Now we have a person starting at five in the evening to cope with the rush that comes in. Its a lot more people coming in at once instead of trickling in like they had been. That person is than lucky enough to finish when we close and doesn't have to deal with all the cleaning. We've also had a pub crawl start to come in this new year. They come in at around 10 Wednesday to Saturday. That makes the last part of the night a little maniac because all of a sudden there are generally quite a few people who just sort of appear out of nowhere. It also extends the cleaning period a bit since all the glasses fly off the shelves and than we really don't have that good of a chance to get them cleaned before we close.

Thursday

This is the day that things start to pick up. People start getting ready for the weekend and come here for a drink to send it off. We get pretty busy these nights with lots of people coming in and sticking around for a bit longer. This is also the point where bigger groups start to come in and stick around for longer bits of time. They'll all commit to buying a round, which adds up pretty quick when there are six or seven of them.

Friday

Still really busy these days. The day start to pick up around 4 it seems. People knock off early from work and want to get a good start on their weekend. Really big groups start coming in too. Last week both Neil and I poured a sixteen pint round to a group. That's pretty common too. I'd say the six or seven is a good chunk of the groups coming in. Earlier in the evening it will be almost exclusively office workers or people coming from Westminster or the City. They get off work and head in here. Later in the night though the dynamic changes as Uni students start coming in on a night out. They'll stick around here until we close and than head to one of the bars in the area.

Saturday

Pretty busy all day. We'll start getting hit right around one as people come in for food. At this point its almost all people from the Continent who come in after wandering around Westminster. These people are a bit of a pain. They expect things to be a certain way, no matter what. They don't ask how it works here, they just expect to served in the manner they want to be served. Rather annoying really. They don't seem to realize that this is a bar that happens to serve food, not a restaurant.

The nights are even more hectic. Pub crawls come in and these are generally pretty big groups. They all want half pints of this or that and are generally pretty drunk when they get here. That can make communication somewhat difficult. People really start crawling out of the walls too. Saturday is a pretty bug footie day here so supporters will make the trip into London to see their team, and than they want to make a night of it. These are the kind of football supporters you here about in things like Green Street Hooligans. In fact, we had a couple of those guy in the other night. They'll be really polite at the bar, but anywhere else I would not cross them. We haven't had many problems with them since I've been here, but there have been some close calls.