I’m just about old enough to remember when pubs had separate saloon bars and lounges. In particular, I recall several miserable afternoons sitting on torn and stained couches in unheated ‘lounges’ because those were the only bits of the pub where kids were allowed. The fun bit — the bit of the pub where the action was, and the laughing, and the fruit machine — was the saloon.
These days, most pubs have knocked rooms through to make one big drinking hangar, or turned the lounge into a restaurant area.
Do I miss the lounge? No, not really. I’d rather drink my Panda Pop with everyone else.
3 replies on “Kids in the lounge”
One of my locals still has a ‘family room’; no under 14s in the bar or lounge. In the summer, kids play outside on the swings and chuck up crisps and Panda pop. In the winter, they stay at home as the family room is rarely heated . They should be at home, anyway, cleaning chimneys and shaving the dog. Just like I had to do when I wor a lad…
“Family rooms” sound like they should be cosy, don’t they? Sadly, they often look like the set of Hostel.
Obviously these things vary around the country, but wasn’t it usually a combination of lounge and public bar, rather than saloon bar? Saloon bar was the name given to a separate bar of intermediate status between lounge and public, generally only found in the South-East, and often felt to be the home of reactionary, “Little England” opinions.
And in and around Manchester a public bar is widely called a vault.