With pubs being open for over two months now, we got London-based Redditors and businesses to give us their verdict on remote ordering.
It’s a minor miracle to step back into a pub after a zoom-addled winter. There’s faces, real ones that don’t jitter and voices that don’t glitch without warning – “sorry guys, my WiFi is doing that thing again.”
But as much as the pub is an escape from the screen, it is also a reminder that certain day-to-day activities have become impossible without one. On every table and bartop is a QR code like a tattoo from a disastrous holiday. This is how we order a cold one now: scan, download, enter in lots of personal information, your credit card number, the transaction processes and the beer arrives, hopefully. For reasons of convenience or sheer cultural inertia, the regime of app-based ordering may very well outlive the pandemic that fostered it.
We conducted a survey with the good people at r/london, the city’s dedicated subreddit to see how residents feel about apps remaining in pubs and bars after the pandemic. In the interest of science we tried to keep the polling objective with some straightforward statements:
Option A – “I hope the apps stick around.”
Option B – “I prefer staff to take my order or just go up to the bartender.”
The good news is that the survey generated over 500 responses and 40 comments. The bad news for anti-app partisans was that support for remote ordering trounced the opposition by almost two-to-one. However, comments in support of apps tended to come with qualifications.
One respondent said, “I would be fine with a mixed regime… I really find it tedious having to download a different app any time I change pubs (unless it’s part of the same chain).”
“Like a lot of others I’d like a bit of a mix,” said another user. “I love table service IF the pub has a) enough staff and b) they know what beer they’ve got, and a bit about it.” They reiterated what became something of a theme throughout the discussion; depending on where you go, the apps can be hit or miss. They “are OK, but vary so much in quality/ease of use. I don’t want to have to click a million times to just order a couple of pints. I also think people need a choice… Not everyone has a smartphone and some people use cash.”
Others simply appreciate the convenience, “I really like not having to break conversation to go to the bar,” said user MonkeyBoogaloo.
Responses from app abolitionists ranged from reasonable but frustrated, to full-out moral condemnation. One Redditor said, “Apps are evil. They are invasive and you don’t even know what they are tracking,” echoing a recent investigation from Wired magazine which found that popular ordering apps like the one used by Weatherspoon since 2017 and Greene King, another pub chain, tracked user’s location and search history.
One Redditor offered a three-word solution: “Nationalise the app.”
The best performing comment from either camp dramatised the absurd and almost bureaucratic procedure of getting a beer with one of the more bloated apps.
Though, as a couple Redditors pointed out, some pubs have ordering services that don’t require an app at all. If you have Apple or Google Pay set up on your phone, these systems can be astonishingly easy to use.
Of course the response of users is only half the equation. Pubs and bars will also have a say in whether remote ordering becomes a permanent fixture of going out. While some commenters expressed skepticism that ordering apps would continue being used after a full re-opening, many of the businesses we contacted intended to keep them.
The Bussey Rooftop Bar in Peckham is one of those businesses. “We will be continuing to use [the app] at least in the short term,” said Amelia Edgell-Cole, a representative for the bar. “It allows guests to enjoy their time with friends rather than queuing up at a bar.”
Manager Sakhawat Hossain at The Joiners Arms pub in Camberwell has enjoyed a positive experience with remote ordering, both from staff and customers. They use one of the aforementioned systems that does not require any downloading.
“It’s less work. The customers love it because they don’t need to get up or download anything and we love it because we don’t have to hurry around as much. The orders just come up over there [behind the bar] and we make the drinks.”
“We’ll definitely keep using it after the pandemic,” Hossain says.