Are Pubs Only as Good as their Toilets? The New Theory!

I have a theory about how you can tell how good a pub is going to be just by looking at the toilets.

My local pub is the Compton Swan, in the village of Compton in Berkshire. It’s been through quite a few changes in the seven years that I’ve lived in the village. For some time we didn’t go there, as we’d had some not so good experiences. Then a few months ago, after it changed hands again earlier in the year, we thought we’d try it out. And we were very pleasantly surprised. Good food, good beer, good service … and good toilets. They’re clean and smart and nicely looked after, is there a correlation?

There’s another pub that I’ve been to with my friend Wendy a number of times. The last time we went there, we had an interesting experience. We ordered some drinks from a waitress and when they didn’t arrive, we asked another passing waitress if she could chase them up “we’re very busy, you know,” was her response, not quite the answer we were expecting. And yet still the drinks didn’t arrive, until we asked a third waitress. Eventually, she came back to take our food order and we had a long conversation with her about whether or not the seasoned chips were nicer than the regular chips. We decided that seasoned chips sounded better. Twenty minutes after we’d placed our order with her, she came back to our table and asked “did I take your food order?” We suggested that perhaps she should check with the kitchen to find out what had happened to it. Eventually our meals arrived – with regular chips instead of seasoned chips – and my pie was overcooked. We decided not to order dessert or leave a tip. On the way out of the pub, I went to the toilet. The site that greeted me explained why the service we’d received for our meal had been so bad. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

As for the pub I visited recently with my parents, where we could smell the toilets as soon as we walked in … no surprise on how awful the service was there!

So here’s my theory: it’s about providing an all round great experience for your customers. If you just focus on winning a new client (making the outside of your pub look good) but you don’t then give them the service they expect (good food) then your clients won’t come back again. But there’s more. If you pay attention to the little details of your service, like keeping in touch with your clients regularly or answering the phone politely (keeping the toilets clean) then it shows that you really care about the whole experience you’re giving your clients. Look after everything behind the scenes as well as ‘front of house’ and your customers will keep coming back.