Business
Last orders: Britain's pubs struggle to survive in an atomized, remote-work world
Over the bar of a 200-year-old pub in southeast London hangs a sign: “For the people of East Greenwich, by the people of East Greenwich.”
What might sound like a pithy slogan is in fact the truth. The Star of Greenwich, which almost closed for good last year, has been saved by the local community after three residents — all of whom hold down full-time jobs — came to the rescue of their “local.”
“Once these things go, they never come back,” says James Gadsby Peet, who banded together with two friends to take over running the pub. It’s not the drinks that matter here, he says, but preserving “a community space for people to come together.”
Directors and co-founders of the Star of Greenwich community pub are Lisa Donohoe, left, James Gadsby Peet and Kirsty Dunlop.
(Joshua Bright / For The Times)
Had the trio not resolved to save the Star, it would have become one of the many taverns in the British capital that closed at a record pace last year. Hit by a stubborn cost-of-living crisis and post-pandemic economic woes, 383 London pubs called for last orders in the first six months of 2023, compared with 380 in all of 2022.
Earlier this month, four sister pubs in central London — including one believed to have been frequented by two of Jack the Ripper’s victims — were put up for sale, highlighting the struggles of an industry synonymous with British life.
The Star (formerly the Star and Garter, before the new team renamed it) has been serving up pints since the early 1800s, with the dark wooden beams inside believed to be from its original construction. But even its long history wasn’t enough to guarantee its future until the community rallied around it.
Pubs across Britain, not just in London, are suffering a worse fate. Government figures show that from 2000 to 2019, the last full year of business prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 13,600 pubs around the country, or 22% of the total, shut their doors for good. Last week, the British Beer and Pub Assn. warned that, without economic support, a further 2,000 may be gone by the time this year is out, potentially leading to 25,000 jobs lost — and 288 million fewer pints poured.
Aside from financial pressures, pubs — long the social glue in British communities — are increasingly falling victim to shifting work and leisure patterns. “Old boozers,” as they are affectionately known, are struggling to compete in a world where people work from multiple locations at variable hours and have myriad entertainment options on their phones and computers.
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1. Musicians and patrons chat at the Star of Greenwich. James Gadsby Peet said he decided to help run the pub to preserve “a community space for people to come together.” 2. Rolo enjoys some beer at the Star of Greenwich. 3. The Star of Greenwich was on the verge of closing down before the community stepped in to save it. (Photographs by Joshua Bright / For The Times)
Charo Havermans, a historian at University College London who studies the role of pubs in public life, says that such establishments remain vital and inclusive gathering spots in an age when religion is in decline and communication is increasingly virtual.
“There’s a true sense of community that falls away when pubs disappear,” she says. “You lose a sense of history.”
Given the crucial role that pubs have played in local neighborhoods, it’s perhaps no surprise that some communities have stepped in themselves to keep the lights on.
When the Step pub in north London closed in 2020, there was an outcry as property developers tried to take it over, leading Dan Jones, a resident of four years, to consider a different solution: “Why don’t we try and buy it as a community?”
He began handing out fliers and, in a matter of weeks, “very quickly realized there was a large appetite” to enact his plan. Hundreds of people pledged to invest in a fundraising campaign, and within four weeks, the effort raised $357,000 — far in excess of the $319,000 goal — which was topped up by a government grant of $382,000.
“It took us by surprise, the speed at which we were able to raise the money and the fact that we got over target,” Jones says.
He puts this down to the Step being more than just a place to drink. “It was the hub of the area … so people really missed that when that was gone,” he says. “And that’s why there was this feeling to bring it back.”
Border collie Stanley is a favorite at the Star.
(Joshua Bright / For The Times)
Another pub-saving initiative, CityStack, lets bar-hoppers pay $32 for a special beer mat that gives them $13 off tabs of $25 or more at participating establishments. The discount is good for up to 10 visits.
At the Star in East Greenwich, Gadsby Peet admits that financially, things are “really tight,” even though the community-run pub needs to pay only for behind-the-counter staff, with no management costs, and there is no pressure to turn a profit. Currently, the pub welcomes customers from Thursday through Sunday, as the team “can only open [at] the times we can afford to open.”
Strong business over Christmas has meant that “at the moment, it’s sustainable,” he says, though “you never quite know what’s going to happen.”
The crowd on a Saturday night is a mixture of friends, a smattering of solo drinkers and a young couple on a date, mulling whether to head to the jukebox or dartboard. The bar staff knows regulars by name and is primed for chitchat in a part of London best known for its role in maritime history and as the birthplace of notable Tudors, including Henry VIII.
The pub was open until 2021, when its license was suspended following a stabbing outside. After news circulated that the building was to be sold, Gadsby Peet and Kirsty Dunlop fell to chatting at the gates of their children’s school and resolved that, together with another friend, Lisa Donohoe, they would put together a proposal to save it.
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1. A sign above the bar at the Star of Greenwich pub. 2. Pete Ribers throws a dart at an old board still bearing the previous name of the Star of Greenwich. 3. Alan Campbell, left, and Rob Calnan play the ring and hook game. (Photographs by Joshua Bright / For The Times)
The building’s owners “bought into the vision,” Gadsby Peet recalls. “They saw this as a great way that they could use some of their assets for community good.”
The team still has to make sure that rent for the premises is paid each month. Gadsby Peet admits that juggling the Star, his job as director of a web design agency and his young family has been more challenging than he imagined.
“At the beginning you don’t realize how much [work] it’s going to be, so the first thing is just, ‘We’ll send a couple of emails,’” he says. “And before you know it, you’ve got a lot of people interested.”
His main measure of success comes at the end of the week, when in the Star he “see[s] people who are working on the railways … next to people who are working in Canary Wharf [a business district] … next to people who have been drinking here since the ’50s. That, for me, is where the really great stuff happens.”
Pat Murray, 86, has been a loyal customer since his early 20s. He recalls coming to the pub when he and his wife “were courting. I’ve since brought my children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren into the pub. It’s a family tradition for us.”
Keeping prices low — a pint of beer costs from $6, compared with $9 at many London pubs — and offering the space for free to community groups and activities including kids’ clubs, Italian classes and local folk musicians has eased concerns about gentrification and fostered new connections, Gadsby Peet says.
James Gadsby Peet admits that financially, things are “really tight” at the Star. Behind him are co-founders Lisa Donohoe and Kirsty Dunlop.
(Joshua Bright / For The Times)
He adds that throwing the Star’s doors open to a wider group has allowed locals “to meet people that they wouldn’t otherwise run into. We think the more that that happens, the more cohesive the community becomes, the nicer a place it is to live.”
A September report by Co-operatives UK, an organization that represents cooperative businesses, showed that they play “a significant role in community development” and that community-owned pubs have increased by 62.6% in the last five years.
But some pubs in London’s commercial centers have found it harder to weather the current storms. The rise of remote working, with many employees now going into the office only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, has significantly slashed footfall in neighboring hospitality businesses. Late last year, figures showed that office occupancy in Central London had reached its highest level since the pandemic, at an average of 50.9% — but that is still 10% to 30% lower than before the coronavirus hit.
When the first national lockdown was announced in March 2020, “everybody thought it was just going to be a blip,” says Lorraine Crawford, who took over the Centre Page tavern near St. Paul’s Cathedral, in London’s historic financial district, in 2005. But her business “overnight just took a nosedive. … It never ever really gained momentum again.”
Crawford and her husband, who had by that stage been in the industry for four decades, “tried everything” to keep the place afloat, she says, but paying $127,000 per year in rent, along with $45,000 in business taxes, was “horrendous. We were getting in debt all the time.”
People pass by the lighted-up Star pub. “There’s a true sense of community that falls away when pubs disappear,” says Charo Havermans, a historian at University College London who studies the role of pubs in public life. “You lose a sense of history.”
(Joshua Bright / For The Times)
Add the inflation on alcoholic drinks — which late last year reached 9.9%, the highest since the early ’90s — and the only thing left to do “was back out of it gracefully, which was so sad,” Crawford says. “We were more of a family because we were just a small business.”
The Centre Page closed more than a year ago.
“In our industry, nothing has gone back to being the same,” Crawford laments. “And I don’t think it ever will.”
Lytton is a special correspondent.
A Stanford software engineering degree used to be a golden ticket. Artificial intelligence has devalued it to bronze, recent graduates say.
The elite students are shocked by the lack of job offers as they finish studies at what is often ranked as the top university in America.
When they were freshmen, ChatGPT hadn’t yet been released upon the world. Today, AI can code better than most humans.
Top tech companies just don’t need as many fresh graduates.
“Stanford computer science graduates are struggling to find entry-level jobs” with the most prominent tech brands, said Jan Liphardt, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University. “I think that’s crazy.”
While the rapidly advancing coding capabilities of generative AI have made experienced engineers more productive, they have also hobbled the job prospects of early-career software engineers.
Stanford students describe a suddenly skewed job market, where just a small slice of graduates — those considered “cracked engineers” who already have thick resumes building products and doing research — are getting the few good jobs, leaving everyone else to fight for scraps.
“There’s definitely a very dreary mood on campus,” said a recent computer science graduate who asked not to be named so they could speak freely. “People [who are] job hunting are very stressed out, and it’s very hard for them to actually secure jobs.”
The shake-up is being felt across California colleges, including UC Berkeley, USC and others. The job search has been even tougher for those with less prestigious degrees.
Eylul Akgul graduated last year with a degree in computer science from Loyola Marymount University. She wasn’t getting offers, so she went home to Turkey and got some experience at a startup. In May, she returned to the U.S., and still, she was “ghosted” by hundreds of employers.
“The industry for programmers is getting very oversaturated,” Akgul said.
The engineers’ most significant competitor is getting stronger by the day. When ChatGPT launched in 2022, it could only code for 30 seconds at a time. Today’s AI agents can code for hours, and do basic programming faster with fewer mistakes.
Data suggests that even though AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic are hiring many people, it is not offsetting the decline in hiring elsewhere. Employment for specific groups, such as early-career software developers between the ages of 22 and 25 has declined by nearly 20% from its peak in late 2022, according to a Stanford study.
It wasn’t just software engineers, but also customer service and accounting jobs that were highly exposed to competition from AI. The Stanford study estimated that entry-level hiring for AI-exposed jobs declined 13% relative to less-exposed jobs such as nursing.
In the Los Angeles region, another study estimated that close to 200,000 jobs are exposed. Around 40% of tasks done by call center workers, editors and personal finance experts could be automated and done by AI, according to an AI Exposure Index curated by resume builder MyPerfectResume.
Many tech startups and titans have not been shy about broadcasting that they are cutting back on hiring plans as AI allows them to do more programming with fewer people.
Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei said that 70% to 90% of the code for some products at his company is written by his company’s AI, called Claude. In May, he predicted that AI’s capabilities will increase until close to 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs might be wiped out in five years.
A common sentiment from hiring managers is that where they previously needed ten engineers, they now only need “two skilled engineers and one of these LLM-based agents,” which can be just as productive, said Nenad Medvidović, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California.
“We don’t need the junior developers anymore,” said Amr Awadallah, CEO of Vectara, a Palo Alto-based AI startup. “The AI now can code better than the average junior developer that comes out of the best schools out there.”
To be sure, AI is still a long way from causing the extinction of software engineers. As AI handles structured, repetitive tasks, human engineers’ jobs are shifting toward oversight.
Today’s AIs are powerful but “jagged,” meaning they can excel at certain math problems yet still fail basic logic tests and aren’t consistent. One study found that AI tools made experienced developers 19% slower at work, as they spent more time reviewing code and fixing errors.
Students should focus on learning how to manage and check the work of AI as well as getting experience working with it, said John David N. Dionisio, a computer science professor at LMU.
Stanford students say they are arriving at the job market and finding a split in the road; capable AI engineers can find jobs, but basic, old-school computer science jobs are disappearing.
As they hit this surprise speed bump, some students are lowering their standards and joining companies they wouldn’t have considered before. Some are creating their own startups. A large group of frustrated grads are deciding to continue their studies to beef up their resumes and add more skills needed to compete with AI.
“If you look at the enrollment numbers in the past two years, they’ve skyrocketed for people wanting to do a fifth-year master’s,” the Stanford graduate said. “It’s a whole other year, a whole other cycle to do recruiting. I would say, half of my friends are still on campus doing their fifth-year master’s.”
After four months of searching, LMU graduate Akgul finally landed a technical lead job at a software consultancy in Los Angeles. At her new job, she uses AI coding tools, but she feels like she has to do the work of three developers.
Universities and students will have to rethink their curricula and majors to ensure that their four years of study prepare them for a world with AI.
“That’s been a dramatic reversal from three years ago, when all of my undergraduate mentees found great jobs at the companies around us,” Stanford’s Liphardt said. “That has changed.”
Walt Disney Co. is expanding its presence in the Middle East, inking a deal with Saudi media conglomerate MBC Group and UAE firm Anghami to form a streaming bundle.
The bundle will allow customers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to access a trio of streaming services — Disney+; MBC Group’s Shahid, which carries Arabic originals, live sports and events; and Anghami’s OSN+, which carries Arabic productions as well as Hollywood content.
The trio bundle costs AED89.99 per month, which is the price of two of the streaming services.
“This deal reflects a shared ambition between Disney+, Shahid and the MBC Group to shape the future of entertainment in the Middle East, a region that is seeing dynamic growth in the sector,” Karl Holmes, senior vice president and general manager of Disney+ EMEA, said in a statement.
Disney has already indicated it plans to grow in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, the company announced it would be building a new theme park in Abu Dhabi in partnership with local firm Miral, which would provide the capital, construction resources and operational oversight. Under the terms of the agreement, Disney would oversee the parks’ design, license its intellectual property and provide “operational expertise,” as well as collect a royalty.
Disney executives said at the time that the decision to build in the Middle East was a way to reach new audiences who were too far from the company’s current hubs in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Fancy grocer Erewhon will return to Pacific Palisades in an entirely rebuilt store, as the neighborhood’s luxury mall, owned by developer Rick Caruso, undergoes renovations for a reopening next August.
Palisades Village has been closed since the Jan. 7 wildfire destroyed much of the neighborhood. The outdoor mall survived the blaze but needed to be refurbished to eliminate contaminants that the fire could have spread, Caruso said.
The developer is spending $60 million to bring back Palisades Village, removing and replacing drywall from stores and restaurants. Dirt from the outdoor areas is also being replaced.
Demolition is complete and the tenants’ spaces are now being restored, Caruso said.
“It was not a requirement to do that from a scientific standpoint,” he said. “But it was important to me to be able to tell guests that the property is safe and clean.”
Erewhon’s store was taken down to the studs and is being reconfigured with a larger outdoor seating area for dining and events.
When it opens its doors sometime next year, it will be the only grocer in the heart of the fire-ravaged neighborhood.
The announcement of Erewhon’s comeback marks a milestone in the recovery of Pacific Palisades and signals renewed investment in restoring essential neighborhood services and supporting the community’s long-term economic health, Caruso said.
A photograph of the exterior of Erewhon in Pacific Palisades in 2024.
(Kailyn Brown/Los Angeles Times)
“They are one of the sexiest supermarkets in the world now and they are in high demand,” he said. “Their committing to reopening is a big statement on the future of the Palisades and their belief that it’s going to be back stronger than ever.”
Caruso previously attributed the mall’s survival to the hard work of private firefighters and the fire-resistant materials used in the mall’s construction. The $200-million shopping and dining center opened in 2018 with a movie theater and a roster of upmarket tenants, including Erewhon.
“We’re honored to join the incredible effort underway at Palisades Village,” Erewhon Chief Executive Tony Antoci said in a statement. “Reopening is a meaningful way for us to contribute to the healing and renewal of this neighborhood.”
Erewhon has cultivated a following of shoppers who visit daily to grab a prepared meal or one of its celebrity-backed $20 smoothies.
The privately held company doesn’t share financial figures, but has said its all-day cafes occupy roughly 30% of its floor space and serve 100,000 customers each week.
Erewhon has also branched out beyond selling groceries.
Its fast-growing private-label line now includes Erewhon-branded apparel, bags, candles, nutritional supplements and bath and body products.
Erewhon will also open new stores in West Hollywood in February, in Glendale in May and at Caruso’s The Lakes at Thousand Oaks mall in July 2026.
About 90% of the tenants are expected to return to the mall when it reopens, Caruso said, including restaurants Angelini Ristorante & Bar and Hank’s. Local chef Nancy Silverton has agreed to move in with a new Italian steakhouse called Spacca Tutto.
In May, Pacific Palisades-based fashion designer Elyse Walker said she would reopen her eponymous store in Palisades Village after losing her 25-year flagship location on Antioch Street in the inferno.
Fashion designer Elyse Walker announced the reopening of her flagship store at the Palisades Village in May.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
“People who live in the Palisades don’t want to leave,” Walker said at the time. “It’s a magical place.”
Caruso carried on annual holiday traditions at Palisades Village this year, including the lighting of a 50-foot Christmas tree for hundreds of celebrants Dec. 5. On Sunday evening, leaders from the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Pacific Palisades gathered at the mall to light a towering menorah.
A total of 6,822 structures were destroyed in the Palisades fire, including more than 5,500 residences and 100 commercial businesses, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Caruso said he hopes the shopping center’s revival will inspire residents to return. His investment “shows my belief that the community is coming back,” he said. “Next year is going to be huge.”
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