Orderly queues in pubs? They’re extremely civil – but need to end now

It was my round at my local pub, so I wandered in and joined the queue for the bar. With precious minutes to kill, I checked my phone to find an email from a colleague despairing at this new thing, “queueing up for a pint like it’s Pret”. Huh? Oh yeah, I’m standing in one. Funny that. I’d dimly registered as much without really noticing. And, come to think of it, yes, it has become a thing.

And why not? I know it’s not traditional, but tradition isn’t everything. What’s worth preserving about ye olde practice of large, shouty blokes like me, two-deep at the bar, all a-clamour for the barkeep’s attention? What of smaller, quieter, less determined, less ruthless people? Their pride and patience and nerves risk a shredding as their thirsts remain unslaked. A friend of mine, tall and handsome but somehow a little ashamed of being both, was never equal to the struggle. “I’ll just for ever be ignored by barmen of all nations,” he once said to me, sadly.

When you think about it, there’s an awful lot going on in a crush at the bar – often too much. There’s the sheer physicality of it, and the unpleasantly Darwinian element. How’s the person behind the bar supposed to know who’s next? Imagine being the focal point of all those eyes staring out of all those desperate, imploring, helpless, furious, indignant faces. You must need the awareness of an air traffic controller or a lifeguard. It’s a lot to ask. It’s also a lot to ask of the people standing in this madding crowd. There will be those among us who just want a drink and couldn’t give a sodden beer mat about whose turn it rightfully is. But there will be those who really care about doing the right thing, and think we know the exact order of this haphazard lateral queue. Mentally we have affixed numbered Post-it notes to each forehead, denoting the correct order, morally good and true.

So when it goes wrong, oh the loathing – for the poor barperson, and most definitely for the sinner now placing their order, out of order. If they don’t know it’s not their turn, they’re ignorant; if they do know, they are simply reprehensible human beings. The culprit is glared at. The rest of us console ourselves by exchanging glances, accompanied by pursed lips and slow shakes of heads. Yes, there’s just too much going on. My mind was made up. Let’s leave this archaic madness behind.

Just to check I’d reached the right conclusion, I decided to test my arguments against Rod Truan, whose Twitter account, @QueuesPub, campaigns against single-file queueing in pubs. “We queue for the bus, or for the checkout, not at bars. Message in your photos,” it says. And how people have responded to the call. Pictures have come in from all over the UK, and indeed the world – his pinned tweet features a photo of a notice in New South Wales: “PLEASE DO NOT QUEUE IN SINGLE FILE AT THE BAR. SPREAD OUT. WE’RE GOOD FOR IT.”

Hmm. I don’t have many opinions I’m not open to changing and, as I scrolled through the photos of single-line queues for the bar, this turned out to be another one. Every post communicates awful despair. In an old-school bar crush there is at least energy and hope. Here there is neither. Short queues, long queues, militarily straight queues, slightly haphazard queues, snaking queues. Some of these snakes, incredibly, are bent into shape by airport-style barriers; others, even more incredibly, have apparently evolved naturally. These are the most worrying, weaving their joyless way around pubs in parodies of partying congas.

“It seems to have started because of Covid,” says Rod, bleakly. “It’s like a hundred years of tradition have been swept away overnight.” But, but, but … Weakly, I try to counter with tales of the troubles I’ve seen, but Rod, a secondary school teacher in Cornwall, is having none of it. “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.”

I realise I’ve been seeing things through the wrong end of a beer glass. Yes, our traditional way is fraught with difficulties, but herein lies its beauty. When it works, when the barkeep somehow knows who’s next, and so does everyone else, a miraculous order has been imposed on chaos. This is what made Britain great. And even when it doesn’t work, there is beauty to be found in the love and sympathy of strangers who can see you’ve been wronged. And, even better, when the server asks you what you’d like and you, a study in virtue, raise a straight arm with a palm flexed upwards and declare, “No! I’m not next. It’s this person here.” There’s a moment of reverent admiration from the congregation followed by a nod of gratitude and an: “Oh, thanks.” The poor barkeep is left as humiliated as an overruled line judge at Wimbledon, but for the rest of us there is no greater feeling of righteousness, no quicker route to the moral high ground, than this. We must preserve it.

So I join Rod in his fight to stamp out pub queueing. We fear a dystopian future in which de-skilled bar staff hand over drinks at a single hatch at the head of a queue, like passport control. Or perhaps there’ll be multiple hatches. “Barperson number three, please,” a voice will intone. Or ticketing systems, like at supermarket butchers’ counters.

How can we go about stamping out the queues when it only takes one punter to stand behind another for a line to form behind them? A zero-tolerance approach may be the only option: bouncer types on hand to throw out queue-formers; lifetime bans for persistent offenders. Bring us your ideas on this, but don’t form a queue. Just all shout at once. We prefer it that way.