What changed in our bars in 2024

You told us your favourite drinks on a night were spirits, beer/ale and cocktails, and when we asked what you thought was missing the resounding response was for additional beer and ale options, more shots/vodka options, and Guinness.

So in September we added Madri and Thatcher's Juicy Apple in Phineas and Mully's and an additional rotating beer/ale tap in Huntley's. Meanwhile in Institute we've added Beavertown Neck Oil, Moretti and Toast on draft as well as additional spirits, spritz, cocktails and mocktails to our menu.

You also asked us to mix up our drink deals which is why cocktails are now available every night except Sports Night singularly for £4.50 or in pitchers for groups at £13.50, in Huntley, Mully's and Phineas with our new menu including an extended shots offering too.

No surprises that social media was your preferred way to hear about events. On our @theunionbars account you suggested we featuring more event photos and give you more notice about what bar events were coming up.

Done and done, if you've been following @theunionbars you'll have noticed we now do a monthly and weekly event roundup of upcoming event highlights. Plus thanks to our wonderful student photographers, we've been putting up more photos from our events.

As a work in progress we're also listing more of our regular events, as well as one offs, on the What's On calendar so you can catch the latest there too.

We had a lot of feedback around this one and it varied a lot per bar, but we can sum it up as please can we have more hot food options and snacks.

So this is a tricky one for us, and sadly one we can’t entirely deliver on. Due to the location of our bars and the age of the buildings, we can’t offer additional/alternative food options but we’re continuing to look into it because you guys really REALLY wanted chips.

What we have done is made sure there are snacking options such as crisps in Huntley and over in Institute we've extended our kitchen hours to open from 12:00 on weekdays and added in some nibbles too such as olives.

You asked if we could have printed menus at the bars in addition to our full online menu. You'll now notice large menus at each of our bars featuring customer favourites for each drink type. Meanwhile over in Institute you'll see table menus that showcase the new cocktail and spritz options on offer.

We couldn't fit the whole menu on one of these, so we've kept our full menu online too so if you can't spot what you're looking for scan one of the drinks menu QR codes around the bar or ask your bartender.

We've also made sure that all our menus clearly have non-alcoholic options listed, as looking at your feedback some of you didn't know that non-alcoholic beer, cider, mocktails and soft drink options are always available in all our bars.

This came through loud and clear. 'Childish' and 'garish' were two of the tamer comments relating to Phineas' old paint job, and in all honesty...we can't say we disagreed.

So we can only thank you for giving us the proof we needed, along with the support of your Sabbs, to get the go-ahead to repaint not only Phineas, but also Mully's and Huntley. We'll be finishing off the new looks with some new signage and displays this year, but we think you'll agree we look 100 times better already.

As well as wanting more notice of upcoming events you also asked for more variety including the return of live music nights and Latino Night (we're working on both but no promises yet). Your favourite event types were live music and quizzes.

Another request was for us to champion more student society events. This was something we were already discussing with ArtsUCL, and you'll notice Mully's is now hosting more student society events than ever before and that the sound and lighting system has been upgraded.

Ah an ever present problem everywhere. Obviously there is only so much we can do with the space we have available. But we hear your requests for additional (and more comfy) seating. When we repainted Mully's we also replaced all the seating. The same will also soon be true of Phineas as we currently await the arrival of more chairs and tables, including longer tables to facilitate bigger groups as requested.

Over in Institute we've got new tall barrel tables and chairs to increase our seating capacity here too.

Okay, we expected this one but it still hurt a little bit. We do everything we can to keep our prices low and offer you value. Which is why you can grab a pint of beer/cider from £3.55, shots from £2.00, and cocktails from £4.50. In fact, the average pint costs just £4.00 in our bars compared to the UKs average price of £4.79 (that's not even comparing just London prices).

We get it everyone wants items to be cheaper (or as some of you jokingly requested free). But here's the thing we don't price gauge our drinks - we'll always keep our prices lower than average to offer you value. Any increases are just so we can cover the costs of running these student spaces for you, with any profit we do make going straight back into the Union and your wider student community. This allows us to contribute to hardship funds, support Union activities etc - it's not going in someone's pocket (definitely not looking at you 'Spoons). So we get it, but know we're doing as much as we can for you here. As a reminder here's some of our great drink deals.

There was a common thread in comments surrounding long access queues or drink wait times that focussed on Institute and Sports Night at Phineas.

So a busy bar will always be a busy bar everywhere. But to try and improve this we regularly talk with security teams to make sure ID/bag checks and enforcement is consistent and lines move as quickly as possible. In the bar, we've also upgraded our payment system so we can process payments quicker which should also help with wait times.

For Sports Night .... we'll be honest, it's still one we're working on together with your student officers and TeamUCL. Currently we're trialling having a TeamUCL priority access period between 19:30 - 20:30 to see if this makes a difference. So be sure to let us know!

Potentially controversial! But OK we just about hear you over the music. We've shared your feedback with bar staff that in pubs such as Huntley the music needs to be a little lower so that you guys can sit and have a chat without shouting.

Don't forget, if it's still too loud you can always ask a member of the bar staff if there's any chance they can turn it down.