Daylight Savings Time Ushers in Pub Season

I believe in the pub.  The official  Pub season kicked off Sunday and will last until Daylight savings recaptures the hour this coming Spring. 

Pub sign found in Tours, France August 2009.  

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I am a pub traditionalist. I believe in the sanctity of a dark stained bar, the perfect head on a well-poured pint and I will never, never grow tired of tapping a handle and filling a pint to set down on a bar.  It is unfathomable to think I would ever grow weary of seeing two mugs clicked together and then tapped on the bar and then lifted to it’s final destination of it’s journey.  I believe great pubs are like old friends and the comfort you feel in a pub is as good as the comfort you feel when you slip into your own bed at night.  I believe there is no better place to catch up with friends.  I believe that “session” pints have a restorative quality.  I have found that after two pints, I become more introspective, less inclined to worry about the trivial and more inclined to accept where I am in this incredibly huge world.  I believe unplugging from the 24 hour news cycle is the best thing a person can do and the best place to do that is to plug into a pub.  

Throughout the course of history.  Pubs have served as that meeting place.  The place to console, the place to celebrate and most importantly the place to just be.  Great pubs serve as training grounds for perfecting the art of conversation in a world that has seen communication surge in forms that take for granted the ability to see a facial expression, the realness of a firmly shook hand and the sound of a voice standing proudly on it’s own without the protection afforded by an illuminated screen or the sound of a clicking keyboard.  I would have preferred to deliver this message to you in person and had you been sitting Saturday night in the Civil Pub you may have already been privy to this discourse.  

Revolutions have begun in pubs and many great thinkers have found solace in their protective walls.  Throughout the course of history many writers, musicians, artists, businessmen and women, politicians and lawyers have entertained, debated and completed business in the confines of their favorite pub.  

Truthfully though and this is the impetus for this blog post, what makes a pub great isn’t any of those professions or the people in them.  A pub doesn’t put much stake in what you do.  It puts stake in who you are.  Pubs are the great equalizer.  One of the few places the struggling can sit next to the privileged.   A rare place where laborers are just as likely to be found sitting next to suits.  And to a great pub, it recognizes them as equal contributors to the world we drink in.  

I gladly acknowledge that the laborers that helped build this place were equally important as my accountant (Ken), my lawyer (shout out to my brother in law, Giuseppe) and the banks that foolishly lent me money.  It takes a lot of people to make this blue marble go round.  And it takes a lot of people drinking lots of pints to have a thriving pub.  Most importantly pubs put stock in regulars and if you aren’t a regular in our pub, I hope you consider finding a pub where you can be a regular and let it begin or continue for you this the 2011-2012 pub season.)    A pub where a bartender knows something about you and is glad to see you arrive and parting ways is always a, “See you next time” rather than, “good-bye.”

We are in the midst of making a real go at this pub.  People from all walks of life have are beginning to put us into their weekly/monthly routine.  We have a really long way to go but are ecstatic that we are seeing a good 30% of people walk through the door for their second, third, fourth (etc.) times.  

On that note, we begin our first Pub Season Tuesday (the first day we are open after Daylight Savings Time.) When daylight ceases it’s summer power play on after work/ evening outdoor events and then suggests to everyone that the comfort of a warm pub will get you through the winter.  Come on down, sit at the bar and let us pour you a pint.  Many years from now you will realize I was right and the day you read this email was perhaps the first day of the rest of your pub life or this blog became the validation you needed to continue being a regular at our pub or any pub you choose.    

NOTE: Pub Season runs from Daylight Savings time to Daylight Savings time.  After daylight savings time we transition quickly into Beer garden season.  Thus without fail, you will always have a season and a reason to come to the Civil Life.  

Cheers!