Publicans bemused by rise of single-file pub queues

Landlords around Britain say they are bemused by a growing trend of customers forming single-file queues to be served at pubs, bars and taprooms, with publicans from north-west London to Newcastle reporting the change. Paul Loebenberg, managing director of the Wolfpack taproom in north-west London, said the behaviour has come from nowhere and is harming business and customers’ experience: “I’m not sure what else we can do to be honest,” he said.

“Maybe there’s something I’ve missed, but we’ve tried everything.” Staff at Wolfpack have begun walking over from behind the taps to free customers from the queue and send them to the bar, and have been trained to say: “Please come forward, don’t queue.” Jess Riley, a manager at Wylam Brewery in Newcastle, said she believes the queueing epidemic began around the pandemic: “I think it was the pandemic… it wasn’t a thing before 2020, and then all of a sudden people really started to like a single-file line after Covid.” Riley said customers sometimes form lines that snake around the building even where multiple long bars are empty, and that staff have argued with customers who insist on queueing.

John Drury, professor of psychology at the University of Sussex who specialises in crowd behaviour, said people’s attitudes to public activities have changed since the pandemic and that some working in hospitality report behaviour has worsened.

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