London brewery is begging customers to stop queuing in single file at the bar

Bar queuing is no longer outraging the more committed pub-goer, but is costing venues valuable business.

Pubs are resorting to buying signs to stop single-file queues from forming out into the street, with many would-be customers turning away after seeing such a long wait.

‘It is such a weird phenomenon,’ Hamish Glenn, managing director at Hackney Church Brew, told Metro. ‘And it is costing us business.’

The bar has steadily seen a rise in queues forming since Covid. But in the last year, as more young people increasingly move to Hackney,

Some nights even see the queue snake out of the building and onto the street.

Staff in the London venue are now under strict instruction to tell people to move forward. But customers are reluctant to do so as queue jumping, after all, is social suicide in the UK.

Hamish said: ‘The majority of people do not like bar queuing. But we are encouraging people to be brave, and skip past the line and get your pint.’

And it is not just to please customers. Queuing at the bar takes nearly three times as long, which leads to bigger lines and customers not buying as much.

‘If it takes a while to get your first drink, you are more reluctant to go up and buy a second,’ Hamish said. ‘And some people walk in, see the long queue and go find somewhere else.’

The venue made an impassioned plea on social media, reminding people they are ‘not a post office’, which has received an outpouring of support.

But the real test in seeing whether their plea has worked is tomorrow, when a younger crowd descends on the bar for £3.50 pints.

Hamish said: ‘If you walk in and discover a single-file queue snaking away from the bar, do not join it.

‘Walk directly to an empty bit of bar. Order your pint.

‘You’re not queue jumping. You’re doing your bit to save British pub culture.’

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