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Watched Sky News today about two pubs closing in the U.K. every day? Seems that pubs are now opening “corner shops” to make ends meet.

So anyone remember the good/bad old days when you could pop down to the corner shop or “kaif” for a loaf of bread or a pound of butter and you only paid at the end of the week when dad got his pay packet?

Here in South Africa where I am based, sadly the “big three” Checkers, Pick n’ Pay and Spar have effectively seen to it that the small man has become extinct.

I guess the same thing has happened in the USA where Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway have done the same and in the United Kingdom it would be Tesco, Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer.

Incidentally Wal-Mart will be opening here in the RSA very soon.

So do you have any fond memories of the “corner shop?”

There was such a place in the southern town where I grew up.

In the town where my grandparents lived, Gramps brother owned a small grocery.

We could pick up what we needed and pay when the crops sold.

When we moved to Wyoming, the town still had such a market. If you wanted a real grocer, you had to drive all the way to Casper.



Now days, the small corner market has been replaced by the 7-11, Circle K, and Kangaroo.

Walmart is getting into the small market now, to compete with 7-11. Not sure how that will work, except that with their enormous buying power, and efficient distribution, they can undercut prices and still make a profit.

We'll see how that plays out.

Pubs are struggling badly. Beer in pubs is taxed so much it's just not worth the price any more, when you can buy bottled from the booze shop at about half the price because it's under a different tax regime.

I remember the old 'milk bar' I see them dotted here and their still.

In Melbourne at least the pubs are doing it hard mainly because Yuppies are moving in from the suburbs and building town houses right next door to pubs . Then they put in noise complaints, the pub may have stood there for 100 years but mr and ms prissy don't like the noise of the city nor the people in it. As a result there is less and less places to go for good old live music, late summer nights drinking in a beer garden, and less pubs. GGGGGRRRRRR!!!! Go back to the suburbs you idiots!!!

You're right Clodhopper. Include the smoking laws as well . One thing I believe though .....if you stop people from congregating (which is essentially what is happening here) then government, advertisers and developers win all the time because people aren't coming together to discuss social issues and the like.

We have one pub in our village and it is struggling big time. Not because it is empty, most days they'll have a hundred or so punters through the door, but because the brewery keeps upping the cost of the tenancy.

Three landlords ago we had a guy who made it a kiddies paradise - hundreds in every night and trouble every week but he was coining it.

The next set of tenants about had a nervous breakdown getting rid of the druggies and stopping the punch-ups but, obviously, the throughput fell as the kids went elsewhere.

The current tenants have the balance right - a damn'd good chef brings in the food trade until mid evening, a good mix of ages fill the bar and there's live music in the function room three nights a week. Anywhere else it would be a successful pub but they're barely making a living - and now the brewery is upping the costs by half of what profit they do make.

The tenants move out this month, they cannot exist on the little that would be left to them. The brewery cannot find anyone else to take it on - if it doesn't pay now it never will. I suspect that the brewery will put a manager in but that is the start of the end for any pub.

We have one pub in our village - for a while.

sounds like you've got the same problems we have ...I won't go back to my local anymore ...not the way they think a pub should run ...very strange when their mouthy 18 year old, without an RSA and a security lisence feels she is able to place her hands on a patron and evict them ...and then tell those who witnessed it they are no longer welcomed at the pub ...very strange ...yes I was one of the wittnesses who told them (cause I knew the law from a past ex) that even in a dignified common place matter, that wasn't a good thing to do . and they will be the ones who blame the locals ..oh dear . who else is going to take them through winter ? the non tourist season?

Ours doesn't even have a good chef ..locals wont eat there . ho hum they'lll work it out eventually . When they discover the bush is not like the outer suburbs.