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.
So we can stand around at the bar for twenty minutes being overlooked whilst gasping for a drink? No thanks.
A pub I go into encourages people to not form queues, that'd be great if the staff could keep track of who is to be served next. Which they don't. So people queue and do so in a way sociopaths can't skip it.
the youth these days, refusing to mob up. you know they are all thinking about online ordering and droid delivery solutions. how are you supposed to pickpocket or molest anyone anymore?
There's so many places that could benefit from one of these and I don't just mean pubs. I've seen all sorts of shit systems to do the same thing, taking people's names, giving people buzz tokens etc, all fail under high demand, many assumes the queue up to the point of order is orderly.
Not only are queues and "pre-queues" full of sociopaths, willing to do the chat and cut and on the other side of the spectrum people trying to stop queue jumper entry by attempting to climb into your back pocket.
The number despencer has so many advantages, you can place it ahead of your actual queue (if you have one, with the number system you don't actually need one), this way chat and cutters can't jump the queue that can still chat but they can't cut, there's no issues with pronouncing weird names or having two people with the same name, it's not trying to be your pal, you are merely a number to be efficiently processed in exchange for currency.
It also allows for some kind of control over queue size and could help prevent situations where people are queuing for something that's about to close half way through, no more tickets means you can't join the queue, there's the possibility for DoS but can easily be solved by taking the ticket dispenser at a closer proximity to staff.
They should have a designated queue area, but still maintain those sitting at the bar. Alternate, one order for the seated, one for the queue. If you want to get fancy, replace the queue area with a cubby system and an app. Order from the app, pay, and get a QR code and a cubby number when your drink is ready. QR unlocked your drink cubby. The cubbies can be see through. I should invent this.
The boomers will just sit at the bar. The cubby system is really just to help protect the bartender from the line-people getting pissy whenever the bartender serves the non-cubby patrons. Puts up a barrier and saves them time having to take some of the orders.
(Edit: should specify this is aimed at the phones and qr codes system!)
That would absolutely ruin the atmosphere for me though, the character of a bar is the bustle and people standing around as well as the chatter you get sometimes.
Removing all that and just having people tap away at their phones while the bar staff silently make drinks, then people walking to a box to grab theirs honestly sounds uninviting.
People tap on their phones all the time anyways. Many people don’t mind getting their drinks faster and being able to spend time with the people they actually came to to the bar to see instead of having to jockey for a drink. Having an alert tell you when your drink is ready is efficient. Paying from your phone means you’ll buy more because it’s easy. People who don’t want to use their phones can sit and order at the bar.
Was in a Spoons once and managed to miss the bar queue that was down the side of the bar, where there was a board separating customer and staff side, but like a metre down. Let’s not do that.