The Oxford pub now abandoning Covid lockdown table service

Paul Silcock, who runs the Gardeners Arms in Plantation Road, north Oxford, said drinkers have told him they want to go back to the old-fashioned method of queuing at the bar.

The landlord said he had decided to keep table service going when Covid restrictions were lifted in July 2021.

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He told the Oxford Drinker, the magazine of real ale group CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale): "Forced by the pandemic to adopt table service in 2020 as part of the government’s rulings on safe reopening for pubs, we opted to keep table service when, in July 2021, all Covid restrictions were lifted in England

"This wasn’t out of, what many of our customers believed, some heightened sense of health and safety, but rather the recognition that in our specific pub, table service was a much, much better way to run the establishment.

"No longer would we have customer deterring queues snake from one side of the pub into the other."

Table service also worked well for food orders, bosses said. 

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Mr Silcock explained: "We run a busy vegetarian and vegan kitchen, and before we turned to table service customers would order at the bar, and be given an order number on a little receipt.

"Serving staff would then have to wander around the pub hollering out, in increasing desperation, the order number.

"If we were lucky we knew whether the customer was inside or outside. If we were unlucky, the customer would have put the number in their wallet, or lost it, or thought 15 was 50.

"All the while we were trying to locate the customer, the food was growing cooler, and the kitchen was backing up."

But getting served at the bar is back by popular demand.

Mr Silcock added: "It’s not that table service is bad.

"In fact I hope I’ve demonstrated its functionality, and the reasoning as to why we kept it. But just sometimes, what works best is not the thing that is actually best. 

"People just don’t want table service in a pub. It does not compute. It is simply not what people want, when they want a pint. And that’s the most important thing. That’s what works best. Not the table service.

"What all this has shown me though is how important it is to listen to what people want. After all, the house is for the public, so it should, and must, run in a way the public want."

Dave Richardson, of Oxford CAMRA, said: "The Gardeners was unusual in keeping table service for so long, but it was clearly the right decision at the time but the right decision now to go back to bar service.

"Many people like to look at the bar and see what drinks are available, and some like to stand or sit at the bar although this causes congestion in a small space as at the Gardeners.

"It's still possible to find table service here and there, and of course Wetherspoons offers this for customers using its app.

"This can be really useful at busy times, or for people on their own who may find a spare table but then find it occupied when they return from the bar."

There is another Gardeners Arms in North Parade Avenue, which has just been refurbished.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

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