Last orders at the bar

My lovely local bar on Fore Street in Exeter will be calling last orders at the bar for the final time this Saturday. I have a lot of good memories of this place and fond memories of the people that I met within it and the friendly atmosphere and smiling happy faces the greeted me in it. It is my number one place to go to unwind and sing a tune at at the end of the week on their karaoke night on a Thursday.

For a few reasons with which I will never truly probably know the exact in and outs of it has struggled at the moment which has effected foot fall and in truth became a little bit of a viscous cycle of potential decline.

Damien the lovely landlord would at time struggle to hire staff to help him with serving drinks or keeping the place clean and that meant people could come into the bar without knowing whether their particular drink would be being served or wether the toilets had been cleaned and supplied with toilet roll that evening.

I did fear this day would come and so have been trying to find a nice bar in Exeter to go into once a week but nothing comes close to the Arcade really, when I make my last trip out this week I must try and remember to get peoples phone numbers that are not on facebook and make sure I try and keep in contact with them.

The one consistent thing that never changes about life no matter how hard you plan, hope or pray it won’t, is that people and places continue to evolve and change. Whether through circumstance within or out of our control and the closing of this bar is just another one of those constantly changing things.

Damien is a young man in his early 30’s, mind you and he is very much looking to his next pub venture in Exeter and he does a man with white van service for those looking to shift some stuff around and earn him some extra cash.

So this Thursday I am planning on going to the Arcade for their last karaoke night in their present venue and look forward to also seeing the lovely pub dog Checkers.