No, a pint does not cost £10 in London (see for yourself)
Headlines appeared over the weekend that a London pint now costs £10. This leaves a bitter taste.
Granted, look hard enough and you’ll find a private members’ club here, a chichi restaurant there, that has found customers with deep enough pockets to pay a fortune for supermarket lager.
But this has always been true – in the way that clubs in Manchester keep a four-figure wine behind the bar for when Premier League stars stride in.
The reality in London is quite different. A few weeks ago, City PM collected pint price data from more than 100 pubs across the capital. We found the average pint price was £5.77. Not £10 – not anything close.
While average prices are a little over £7 in swanky neighbourhoods like Westminster and Kensington, pints for less than £5 are common on London’s fringes, like in Newham, Barking and Havering.
And it’s really not hard to find a sub-£5 pint even in the City, where things are steeper. In the nearest Spoons to City PM towers, prices start at £2.99.
Pubs have had it hard the past few years. Many are on their knees and hundreds have closed.
The sector has had to muddle through the Covid lockdowns, followed by soaring inflation, and then punishing tax hikes, business rate upgrades and minimum wage rises that have pushed pubs to the brink.
The last thing they need is clickbaity headlines from national newspapers that should know better, saying “pubs are a rip-off, don’t go,” or words to that effect.
Pubs need your patronage: if you don’t go, they will. So ignore the noise and go out for a pint. You might be pleasantly surprised.