Evil Eye & Ye Olde Starr Inne:
York’s Drinking Culture
& Night-Time Economy
What’s your tipple? A classic pint of ale? A lager? A cool and refreshing cocktail? In York, you don’t have to choose, as traditional pubs press up against cocktail bars and glitzy chain venues fight for clientele alongside independent brewpubs. York has a thriving pub scene and a Night Time Economy that draws in students, tourists and locals alike, not to mention a throng of stag and hen dos and the glammed-up crowds in town for the York races. Indeed, a popular rumour is that York has over 365 pubs so you can drink in a different one every day of the year! Whilst, unfortunately, this is not actually true, the city does boast nearly twice as many pubs per 10,000 people as the UK average. At this stop of the Sociologically Imagining York podcasted-walk, we station ourselves outside just two of the city’s many drinking establishments – Ye Olde Starre Inne and Evil Eye cocktail bar – to consider the history of York’s drinking cultures and the ways in which consumers engage with the city’s Night Time Economy today, from haunted pubs to late-night clubs. Whilst alcohol consumption may sound like fun and games, we can also bring an academic lens – and specifically a sociological one – to the study of drinking. For example, sociologists have explored the significance of drinking practices and rituals, and the role that alcohol plays in everything from relaxation and celebration to ‘doing’ gender (consider the entanglements of beer, sport and masculinity or the ‘pink gin’ trend and the promotion of alcoholic products for International Women’s Day). We can also think about the ways in which urban landscapes have changed over time and chart the growth and development of what we might call the ‘Night Time Economy’, designed to maximise opportunities to consume and boost local economies by bringing people into the city during the evening and at night to ‘let their hair down’ and part with their hard-earned cash. The resulting tensions (between different users of space, between independent venues and chains or between health and safety concerns, the desire for pleasure and hedonism and demands for law and order) provide further material for the aspiring alcohol researcher. And of course, sociologists might also dissect what we drink, considering how alcohol consumption is marked by dimensions of identity such as gender and social class. At this point in the walk, we raise a glass to York’s drinking culture and consider the ways in which it has changed over the years (stopping to sample the drinks on offer is optional!).
Listen to the podcast below to learn more!
Emily Nicholls is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. She has researched various aspects of UK drinking culture, ranging from ‘girls’ nights out’ in Newcastle to drinking during the COVID-19 lockdown. Her work on gender, drinking and the girls’ night out has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in the book Negotiating Femininities in the Neoliberal Night-Time Economy: Too Much of a Girl? She is also interested in sobriety and non-drinking cultures, researching women’s experiences of sobriety and – more recently – the marketing and consumption of No and Low Alcohol drinks.
