Why fewer people are going to pubs in the UK: Rethinking relevance on tap

At Advertising Week Europe on 24th March, The Unmistakables hosted a panel with Greene King centred on a question of cultural relevance for the pub category. Our CEO, Asad Dhunna, sat down with Kat Harper, Director of Sustainability, and Liz Wells, Customer and Insight Director, to explore our strategic partnership and what the journey towards relevance looks like for a legacy brand entrenched in British culture at a time when Britishness itself is being contested and more closely scrutinised.

The pub has long been framed as a key British institution, a symbol of heritage and community, and one of the last shared spaces in British life. The place you go to meet your mates when the sun comes out, whether that is for a pint, an orange juice (just me?), or just somewhere to be. But the framing of Britishness has never meant the same thing to everyone and has been subject to significant change over centuries, particularly in recent years. 

In 2026, social life has been reshaped by structural forces, from changing demographics and working patterns to the cost of living and new forms of community forming outside of physical space and into the digital. At the same time, more people are moderating alcohol and the pull of at-home entertainment continues to grow. Together, these shifts are changing how people spend time and raising the threshold for what going out needs to offer to feel worth it.

Layered onto that is a political climate that feels more charged than it has in years. Debates around immigration, national identity and what Britishness represents have become more prominent in public life, with different and often competing interpretations gaining visibility. We have seen, perhaps most notably with the rise of the Reform Party, a more traditional framing of British values and identity, while in other contexts it is being challenged and redefined to reflect a more diverse, contemporary and inclusive Britain. As a result, ideas of national pride and belonging feel less settled than they have in the past and more openly contested.

The pub, and Greene King with its deep roots in British culture, sits directly within these shifts, as both a reflection of what is happening in society and a space where those tensions can surface.

Which is why we asked: how can pubs remain culturally relevant without losing the heritage that gives them meaning? What quickly became clear in the room is how much that answer now depends on the role the pub plays within a changing social fabric.

Kat, Sustainability Director at Greene King, brought that into focus through a personal story, describing how the pub had, in her words, saved her at a low point in her life. It was a space she could go to connect with new people and build bonds within her local community, pulling her out of a difficult period. Through that lens, the pub’s role becomes clearer, not just as a place to go, but as a form of social infrastructure that can create connection when it is needed most, particularly as those moments become less common.

At the same time, Liz, Customer and Insights Director, pointed to the scale of the challenge, highlighting the rise in loneliness across the British public. Taken together, this frames the pub as a space that still has the potential to bring people together in person and create increasingly rare moments of connection. But placed against the structural changes already discussed, from the cost of living to shifting habits and expectations, that role cannot be taken for granted, and this is where the real shift sits.

What this ultimately surfaces is that the pub’s relevance is now determined by whether it can actively redesign itself for a society it no longer fully reflects, rather than relying on the assumption that its historical role still holds.

Because there is also an acknowledged reality that this climate, and the idea of Britishness tied to it, has not been experienced positively by everyone. That raises a more difficult question about how the pub evolves as a space for community without reinforcing the same boundaries that exist outside it.

This is where the ambition Greene King set out becomes more consequential. The idea that the pub can operate as social infrastructure, a place where a more fragmented and more diverse population might still encounter each other, is directionally right, but it brings a more immediate tension into focus. The people most in need of connection are not always the people who currently feel the pub is for them.

That gap is where relevance is either built or lost. It shows up in who walks through the door, in who stays, and in who never considers it in the first place. If the pub is to play a broader role in how Britain connects, it has to align with the reality of who Britain actually is, not just who it has historically served.

This is where inclusion moves from principle into practice, becoming part of how the business actually operates day to day. Rather than sitting alongside the strategy, it shapes how decisions are made, and in practical terms, becomes a question of how the pub connects with the most people possible, given the reality of modern Britain. That places inclusion within the mechanics of growth, where it shows up in engagement, in repeat behaviour, and in who feels expected rather than accommodated.

That shift becomes visible in examples like the House of MOBO, where Greene King has reopened a South London pub in partnership with the MOBO Group, taking a previously closed site and rebuilding it as a space shaped by and for the community around it, designed around Black culture, creativity and contemporary British identity. It signals intent and shows how the pub can evolve when it is built with both a broader audience in mind and a clear reflection of the local community it sits within, making the space feel more specific, more relevant and more obviously for the people it serves.

But it also surfaces the harder question. Greene King operates more than 1,000 pubs, and the challenge lies in whether the conditions that make a space like that feel relevant, from how it is designed to how it reflects its local community and signals who it is for, can be translated across the wider estate. Without that, even strong examples risk remaining isolated, while the broader system continues to operate in ways that feel increasingly out of step with the society around it.

As the talk progressed, it was clear that this is already being approached as a growth question as much as a cultural one for Greene King. They provided examples of their work that extend into collaboration with communities and partnerships like Macmillan, raising over £25 million and working together on fundraising events, and Kick It Out, training staff on how to navigate discriminatory behaviours. It reflected a recognition that staying relevant is not about holding a position, but about actively moving with the country as it changes to accommodate the needs of the many. 

British identity itself is not fixed, and it is not settling. It continues to evolve in ways that are layered and sometimes contradictory; the institutions that remain relevant are the ones that can engage with that movement in a grounded way. For the pub, that means working with a wider set of communities in a way that recognises their needs and their lived experience of the space, not just the story told about it. 

“Inclusion is fundamental to our DNA, it's not just a strategy”, Kat Harper