Glass Half Full

For years Brits like to joke that the trouble wasn't finding the way to the pub — it was finding the way home afterward. But the joke has lost its laugh factor for owners of the local British institution, as pubs shut down at a rate of 52 per week. According to the British Beer and Pub Association, nearly 2,400 drinkers' dens closed last year, taking 24,000 jobs with them.

But 38-year-old Stuart Mills, a pub regular and onetime pub employee, has a solution. With his website useyourlocal.com, he's trying to turn the country's pubs into package pickup points. In his thinking, everyone’s a winner: The pubs get more traffic — and website customers don’t have to sit around waiting for the postman or rescheduling deliveries for a more convenient time. (According to the Royal Mail, it makes 40 million unsuccessful first time deliveries a year.)

"I adore the British pub and its importance as part of the fabric of our country," Mills told his local newspaper, The Morpeth Journal. "It’s all about getting people through the door and helping pubs to regain their place at the heart of local communities." (To watch video clips and listen to radio interviews with Mills, click here.)

He said pubs were signing up — there’s a £50 ($81.65) membership fee — at a rate of about 20 per day, with 600 already on the books. (Getting a package delivered to a pub is free, although presumably it’s a good idea to buy a drink as a tip.) The membership fee also gives pubs a page on the website to promote themselves, plus the ability to E-mail regulars who register with the site.

Landlord Adam Griffiths of The Gun Inn in Cheshire, England, is already raising a glass to Mills's pub postal service.

"You can list everything the pub offers on the website — we've already had a wedding booking as a result, because the couple saw our function room online," he told the BBC.

We say cheers to that.