Wed Jan 06, 2021 9:08 pm
I have to say I agree. Brains seemed to have lost the plot a few years ago. Some of the pubs where they have embraced the beer revolution, such as the City Arms, have been really successful but too often walking into a Brains pub is like walking into the 1980's.
Their craft beer offering always seemed half hearted and a cynical attempt to jump on a bandwagon. The food offering is really mediocre and often overpriced. Take a pub like the Ty Mawr in Lisvane. Situated in a two hundred year old farmhouse, extensive grounds with views to the Bristol Channel and beyond, room to expand and offer overnight stays. Get a good chef in and it could have been a destination restaurant with rooms plus a decent local pub. Instead it turned out poor quality pub grub at restaurant prices with an interior decked out in that odd Brains cookie cutter house style that seems to rob any space of atmosphere. The same sepia photo's of old Cardiff on the walls, same beers on draught, a bit of plush wood here and there, a couple of dado rails etc etc. That may work in the Cottage, a 19th century city centre boozer, but they just seemed to try and replicate it everywhere.
Other pubs they have completely abandoned like the Roath Park, Wolfs Castle, etc that have had no investment. I'm not sure what the management have been up to but they have pretty much trashed an iconic Cardiff institution. The real acid test is that whilst people have expressed sadness that its come to this no one that I know is up in arms, no-one is devastated that Brains will effectively be hollowed out until its a meaningless pub co brand name like O'Neills or Yates et al. I think the writing has been on the wall for a long time with Covid coming as a handy excuse to cover up the significant shortcomings of how the business has been managed over the last 20 years or so.