The Solace of the Familiar
I couldn't tell you the exact number of times I ask “the usual?” per week, or even per day, with near certainty of the already expected response, glass in hand.
The ebb and flow of the usual faces with slowly widening smiles softly salivating as they cross the threshold, is an everyday experience. It’s now a little over a year since I re-opened my local – my parents’ local, even – since its untimely closure of almost three years mid 2020, yet the ease of routine now feels so second nature the idea of those within it ever not having been in it week to week seems beyond implausible. During my time, and informed by over a decade of working in a number of different sized pubs and bars, I have come to understand that running a proper locals’ local comes with a number of duties common in many, but perhaps with more focus on certain aspects of hospitality. For one of the most important duties, bar the physical acts of service with a friendly, warm welcome, is to try and remember not only the names of your locals and regulars, but, what their “usual” go-to is.
Here, preferences are varied: innumerable orders of pints of our house Best Bitter, Surrey Hills’ Shere Drop — “pint-a Shere please”; “large Kylie, thanks” — a 250ml pour of extremely drinkable Kylie Minogue's licensed own brand of Provence rosé, generously measured to just over the tallest line on the glass; a double Bourbon whiskey and diet coke, three ice cubes; ten pints of lager, two at a time in a plastic two-pinter maß for the winning side on a Friday night after their weekly game of five-a-side. Peppered in between all these and many more are, of course, the inevitable additions of snacks. Scampi Fries. Red Leicester Mini Cheddars. Pork Scratchings. Cheese and Onion crisps. Peanuts, usually more dry roasted than salted. More Scampi Fries. Another bag of the Red Leicester Mini Cheddars. Occasionally someone will get a few bags of each — a true medley of flavours — it's now known behind the bar as “pub tapas”. There are a few customers whose typical drink of choice surprised me initially, but now has settled into a routine of familiarity.
Sometimes “the usual” itself is quite an extraordinary order; one customer, who only seems to come in on match days, exclusively orders half pints (often three, never more than five) of the strongest beer we have on tap, typically, but not always, with a packet of cashews and a Coca-Cola for his grandson before an AFC Wimbledon home game. Other more ordinary orders circle around a predictability which feels reassuring. The lightest, lowest ABV pale. Whatever we have in the way of something dark. Two halves of whatever is new since last they were in, simultaneously.
The dichotomy of the enjoyment of both familiarity and novelty for some is their main pleasure – relying on those behind the bar to recommend what we know they would like, or simply receiving the nod with a warm smile throughout their stay for a repeated order without having to even name it. At the heart of such behaviour, and the knowledge required to fulfill corresponding desires, is routine. A good local with customary regulars exists primarily to provide the once greatly respected cultural transaction of hospitality — an expected service in almost perfect synchronicity between server and recipient. This symbiosis of customer and bartender, or at least its aimed for relation, is one of equal fulfillment. It’s a finely balanced equation, in which customer and server exist in a mutually chaotic world. External variables, affecting both sides differently come in many forms not limited to inflation, housing, the time of year, relationships and personal or work events - all and sundry, great and small. A constantly shifting vortex of circumstantial elements, for which those in the service side of the exchange in venues with long-standing regulars must always try to navigate to maintain a state of harmonious accord.
It is a longstanding, historically recognisable social institution: putting the world to rights with a drink in hand
People come to the pub predominantly, though by no means exclusively, to drink. There is, of course, an inextricably social element to this ritual. Whether you choose to sit alone with a pint of beer, a glass of lemonade or a white wine spritzer, reading the paper or a book, or sit around the bar, eager for conversation with those either side of it, the pub is an inherently interpersonal environment - that precious haven of the third space. Most who choose to visit do so secure in the knowledge there will always be good company among those who are already known to them and even those who aren't just yet. The unique familiarity of a good relationship in your local as a local across the bar rests on the premise that your company is always welcome, your conversation enjoyable, and your time will be well spent. Locals aren’t always warmed by a much loved almost bucolic-like fiery hearth, but almost always by their regulars.
The integrity of that social contract is inviolable — the hallowed sanctuary of what is in many ways the progenitor of what we now know as and call a safe space. Strong opinions reverberate within the walls about sport, how annoying the roadworks are, politics both local and further afield, sometimes even the beer! The list goes on. It's a longstanding, historically recognisable social institution: putting the world to rights with a drink in hand. Whether cheerful or tales of sorrow, as protagonist or a peripheral bystander, stories are shared, opinions formed and lives enriched simultaneously by the serendipitous entanglement of all those in the mix.
The balancing act in engendering a space that maintains and champions the premise of such long standing traditions of hospitality - welcome, warmth, friendliness - while also eschewing the more archaic practices and attitudes which have dominated such spaces historically, is not easy. Pubs in particular have not always played host to all, and those who have been historically denied access or equal treatment on account of their race, gender or sexual orientation in them are entitled to find as much comfort in them now as they should have done while previously denied. It is a continual act of social alchemy, of organising and tending to the specific cultural mechanics within a local, tending to the needs of customers and their locale concomitantly. These hallowed spaces, and the roles which are required to truly foster the kinds of geniality which those of us who choose to provide within them often demand far more than meets the eye. As we all continue to feel the pinch of ever more costly day-to-day living, socialising comes with an added price tag.
From my own experience, running and working in a local is simultaneously highly rewarding, important and often undervalued. More often than not, those behind the bar are the most frequently seen faces and social interactions that some customers will have. The regularity of familiarity, the dependability of such spaces anchors itself around those who carefully maintain the social engine which keeps things operating. While it may not be a coalface in the strictest terms, the reality is that the furnace needs near constant supervision to maintain its equilibrium.
A local, similar to many other institutions of sociality and hospitality, renders its own requirements. The hope is that the local lives on. We all need places where the day-to-day check-ins feel not only natural but nurturing. Replenishment is found in and through community and its intrinsic sense of camaraderie and mutual revelry. It’s intoxicating. And in times of hardship and uncertainty, we all, more than ever, need to champion the sites that provide such respite and rejuvenation through the solace of the familiar. Long live the local.
Words by Oli Carter Esdale
Art by Helen Anne Smith
