Britain’s biggest pub chain sparks fury with 20p surcharge for beers: Revellers could pay up to £38 for a round of five pints at peak times
Punters face paying up to £38 for a round of five pints while watching the football after Britain’s biggest pub chain introduced surge pricing at some venues.
Stonegate, which owns bar chains including Be At One, Yates and Slug and Lettuce, said it is increasing drink prices at times when pubs are busier to help cover higher costs.
So-called ‘dynamic pricing’ has now been rolled out at around 800 Stonegate sites across Britain.
This means customers have to fork out more for drinks at peak times such as during sports games and on weekends.
Price increases will average 20p a pint, according to The Daily Telegraph.
But they can be higher, with a pint of Peroni at The Coach House in central London jumping from £7.05 to £7.60 at busy times, The Sun found.
Social media users were scathing about Stonegate’s new pricing strategy
The new pricing strategy prompted fury among punters, with some vowing to boycott the pubs in question.
READ MORE – Map shows how southerners are paying THREE TIMES more for pints and post-pub grub than drinkers in the north
Lee Snailham tweeted: ‘Well I sure won’t be using any Stonegate pubs anymore, I mean dynamic pricing ffs what a joke!’
A second Twitter user wrote: ‘This seems … odd. why not just increase prices by a bit overall, rather than when busy? Because yes, you need extra staff when it’s busy but you’re also selling a lot more.’
A third said: ‘At a time of rising cost pressures, this ‘dynamic pricing’ smacks of ripping customers off and giving the industry a poor reputation,’
Meanwhile, Paul Woodhead said the dynamic pricing would ‘driving away customers’.
Other drinkers took to Google reviews to vent their frustration, with one saying: ‘Charges more because it’s busy? [The pub] wanted £4.50 for a small glass of cola… avoid like the plague.’
Stonegate said the price increases help to cover ‘increased cost demands’ that come with a packed venue – including washing glasses, handing out plastic cups, and additional door security.
A spokesman said: ‘Stonegate Group, like all retail businesses, regularly reviews pricing to manage costs but also to ensure we offer great value for money to our guests.
‘On occasions pricing may marginally increase in selected pubs and bars.’
This was ‘due to the increased cost demands on the business with additional staffing or licensing requirements such as additional door team members’.
Stonegate Group, which owns Slug & Lettuce, will charge customers an extra 20p for a pint during peak trading periods
‘Dynamic pricing’ also means the pub company can offer drinkers ‘happy hours, 2 for 1 cocktails, and discounts on food and drink products at different times on different days throughout the week,’ Stonegate said.
Surcharges were originally used by Stonegate during big sporting occasions such as the Fifa World Cup in 2018 and 2022.
But it has now been made a permanent fixture in hundreds of its venues.
The chief executive of another of Britain’s big pub chains, who asked not to be named, told The Guardian that the practice is not unusual and has been ‘going on for decades’, in the largest venues, during events and busy periods.
READ MORE – Interactive map reveals pubs with the lowest-priced booze
‘They’re not the only ones doing it,’ he said.
‘To be honest, good for them that they’re telling people,’ he said, but added that the transparency may have backfired amid dismay on social media and negative publicity.
The cost of a pint has already increased for most pubgoers since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which saw food and drink prices surge as a result.
Stonegate is owned by TDR Capital, the private equity firm behind supermarket Asda, and runs more than 4,500 licensed venues.
The hospitality industry has struggled with spiralling costs in the wake of Covid, Brexit and more recently Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It has also faced a recruitment crisis, with body UKHospitality saying that pubs and restaurants have a job vacancy rate of 11 per cent.
There are 132,000 unfilled roles in the hospitality sector, 48 per cent above pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest numbers from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Last month Scottish brewer BrewDog introduced a temperature-related pricing gimmick at its bars, where ‘the hotter the weather, the cheaper beer’.
It said it would reduce the price of its cold beer by 25p for each Celsius degree increase above a certain baseline temperature based on the time of day.
A pub worker filling up a pint of Peroni at a pub in London
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