‘It’s a pub not a post office!’: Brits slam new trend of ‘single file’ queues in pubs and call for return of tradition
27 July 2023, 21:41 | Updated: 27 July 2023, 21:53
A ‘campaign’ has called on the British public to put an end to a ‘worrying’ new trend of forming a single file queue in pubs and instead restore the age-old tradition of queueing at the bar.
The British proclivity towards forming a queue at any given opportunity has gone one step too far, or so a campaign group is arguing.
Brits have been guided by the tradition of clustering around a bar to order a drink for years, learning to accept the rule that there are no rules - you just surrender to the tradition of orderly chaos.
But since covid, a pandemic-borne rival has threatened the tradition: single file queues.
Rod Truan, the owner of Twitter account ‘QueuesPub’ is determined to put a stop to the worrying trend, as he exposes pubs across the country for behaviour that has been described as “utterly horrific and disturbing”.
His account bio reads: “We queue for the bus, or for the checkout, not at bars. Message in your photos.”
“It seems to have started because of Covid,” Rod told The Guardian. “It’s like a hundred years of tradition have been swept away overnight.”
“It’s unique to British pub culture, that when you go to the bar, you meet new people, you have conversations, you have banter, it’s about public spirit, and that makes it worthwhile.”
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Various arguments have cropped up amid the debate, one asked where the so-called rule on single file queues leaves those already sat at the bar - do they have to leave their seat to join the back of the queue?
While others have suggested the bar queuing tradition isn’t unfair, it just relies upon people being considerate and letting those they know are ahead of them order first.
Countless individuals have written in to help fight the cause, submitting photos of pubs across the country and beyond affected by the craze.
One submission shows a sign from inside a pub in New South Wales, Australia instructing customers: “PLEASE DO NOT QUEUE IN A SINGLE FILE AT THE BAR. SPREAD OUT. WE’RE GOOD FOR IT.”
This, the account argues, is an example that UK pubs should “follow suit”.
Many have expressed their support online for the campaign, as one wrote single file queues are a threat to “the very art of bar work”.
While another said: “Nothing civil about orderly queuing at the pub. Rather a breakdown of civility into a selfish, privatised pub experience!”
“This single file queue in pubs I've started to see over last couple of years I find utterly horrific and disturbing,” another added.
But some remain defensive about the new craze, as one said: “I hate fighting to get served at a bar. I've always hated it. I was happy to see the back of it.”
“Nooo... hate people pushing in at the bar, single file queuing is much fairer. Bar staff always claim they can tell who was there first, but it's rubbish,” another added.
While one who was left on the fence argued for an entirely different system altogether: “I'm very mixed on this. I hate fighting to order at the bar, and I loathe people who push in. But a queue? In a pub? Grim. Maybe it's time we did it continental style, with orders from the table.”
But the jury is out on the debate, and until UK pubs make a decision once and for all, the future of the traditional bar queue and its single file rival remain to be decided.
