Bar or Pub?

What is the difference between a bar and a pub?

Silly question. There are maybe as many answers as there are people asked this question.

I only want to give my own definition and you can make of it what you will.

I have noticed two distinct situations. In the one case, you have a group of two or more people who are going to go out somewhere for the evening. Maybe for a meal, maybe for a few drinks, maybe for a walk. In this situation, the social group is the given and it is that group that chooses a place or places to be together and enjoy their evening or afternoon together.

On the other hand, you have the situation where an individual goes out to a specific place. This may be the train spotters club or the knitting circle and so on. In this case, the social group is at that particular venue.

So when it comes to an evening where alcohol is involved, you have the same two situations - a social group that goes to one or more venues, taking the social group to each place. The social group is primary. The other situation is where a person goes to a particular place for the social group they will find there and has a few drinks while engaging in that social group.

The place for the first situation is what I call a bar. The place for the second is what I call a pub. It just hinges on whether the social group is formed before the outing or already exists at the venue.

The existing social group in a pub, as I define it, is made up of people that the publican and others would refer to as "the regulars". In such a place, I have heard the people who come in as an already existing social group for a couple of drinks before moving on referred to as the "randoms".

Of course, a bar does not have regulars as such and caters specifically for the social group custom. A bar is more likely to have happy hour and 2-for-1 specials to woo the nomadic drinking groups.

A pub does not have to do much at all. It has its regulars, some of whom will be there most days, summer or winter, rain or shine, money in the till as regular as clockwork - ker-ching.

Another way of looking at it is one the one hand you have people who get in a group and go out to drink. On the other you have people who go to meet and talk with mates and have drinks as part of that process. The primary purpose is different.

The first group consists of people who are more likely to "do shost" and end up marauding the streets on a friday night, bereft of speech and only communicating in neo-simian whoops and calls. The second group consists of people who do not intend to get drunk, put away a fair few of their regular tipple and bid a polite goodnight to all, making their way home alone and unstripped of the power of speech.

But these are only my own observations across 6 countries and 20 years.