Most will have been smaller pubs. In the decade leading up to 2019, the number of pubs and bars with 50 or more staff rose from 335 to over 500, according to government figures. At the same time, the number of pubs with 10 employees or fewer fell from almost 38,830 to 22,925.

“The traditional four or five pints, five nights a week in the pub, has been sort of slowly dying for a long while,” says Greg Johnson, leisure industry analyst at Shore Capital.

Turbulent economic conditions and rapidly changing drinking and leisure habits have heaped pressure on traditional pubs in recent years. Business that once could have been taken for granted must be fought for.

Gen Z is drinking less alcohol than previous generations and the fact megapubs do not look or feel like a traditional boozer can be a plus for this group. BrewDog sold more pints of non-alcoholic beer than its flagship Punk IPA at its Waterloo site last year.

Sir Tim Martin adds: “Food, of course, has increased hugely over recent decades and more space is helpful in accommodating diners.”

While bigger pubs are more expensive to run, they offer significant economies of scale.

“The beer brands want to shift volume so they will do deals just above cost because they know they’re going to shift an insane amount of it,” says Cussens.

Bigger sites are in many cases also purpose-built for hospitality, he adds, which can reduce some running costs.

“Your little local pub is quite often 100 years old. Sometimes we had the kitchen up the stairs or round the corner – we were in listed buildings – they are inherently inefficient. 

“If you go down to a retail park, whether it’s a Pizza Express or a BrewDog, they are designed in purpose-built units that are inherently efficient. You are competing in these inefficient, awkward little spaces.”

Inflation is finally coming down in a boost for boozers of all sizes but the trade now faces the spectre of a ban on smoking in pub gardens. Experts have warned that Sir Keir Starmer’s policy, if enacted, could push already struggling pubs over the edge.

Perhaps the one thing that may save them is scale: the age of the megapub is just beginning.