Streetly, Walsall:
I’ve probably already upset the Streetly lot, who will be insistent they’re in Sutton Coldfield.
Tough.
I still think of Farmer John’s as a new pub, despite it being there since at least the early 90s, maybe the late 80s. It was one of those modern Banks’s pubs of the time, but unlike others, this seems to thrive.
Standard feedbag stuff, but the food was well cooked, the staff were pleasant, parking was easy, and it wasn’t full of kids, so it was quite pleasant.
Morecambe:
Next to the football stadium, so probably well known to Mikee Evans and Jane Stuart, we were at the stadium as it was the hub of a historic bus event, and dropped in for a pint, without high expectations.
Actually, it wasn’t bad. yes, it’s a standard Marstons feedbag pub, yes, there were kids about, but it’s a big site with lots of space in and out (sadly, the outside is astroturf), so it wasn’t an unpleasant place to sit for a while and ruminate on Tyson Fury’s house, almost next door.
Aldridge:
Our luck wasn’t good this day, after the abortive visit to The White House, we went to The Dilke. This seemed better: warm, and we got a seat in the sun. More drinks were ordered, we chose from the menu.
Oh, we don’t have hot food, there’s been a gas leak
For the record, they didn’t have any cold food, either.
Fuck me, it might have been nice to mention that, or to take the menus in and take the cutlery off the tables, wouldn’t it?
FFS.
Aldridge:
When I were but a lad, this was the place to go for underage drinking, and it had a video jukebox, the essential think back in the mid-late 80s. Nowadays, it’s a pretty standard Sizzling Pub feedbag, which is why we dropped in, looking for lunch. I was driving 🙁
We ordered drinks and sat down, before it dawned upon us just how cold it was. The heating was shafted, so we drank up and left. Shame really, it looked OK, if unexceptional, the staff were pleasant.
Brampton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire:
I needed a slash, and we needed some lunch, and it was lunchtime. A handy stop on our journey east.
Standard Brewer’s Fayre, on a services site, so it’s a close call for actually being a pub, but just scrapes in. Food, wine, and prices all OK, staff pleasant, but it is what it is: a feedbag at the junction of major roads.
Burntwood, Staffs:
We’d been for an excellent Chinese meal nearby, and I’d not been in here for some 35 years, so we gave it a go as it was a handy place to get picked up from, and we’d already been to Vintage Liquid Taphouse nearby.
It’s not bad, but nothing special, either: a typical family feedbag pub, a little grubby in places. Evidently older than I remembered it (I thought is was modern, but it’s probably Victorian)
Standard feedbag menu, some cask ale, usual suspects otherwise. Surprisingly quiet for a Friday night.
Parkgate, Chesire:
A Stonehouse family feedbag pub at the far end of Parkgate village.
The building is sadly a bit tatty, with peeling paint, broken roof tiles, and odd bits of paper in some windows, but there’s loads of potential if someone invested: inside is standard pubco feedbag with a carvery and the usual fare, and the usual suspects beer-wise: outside has a big terrace for the sun and the views, Staff were pleasant, but it could do better.
My usual criteria for a revisit post is if something has changed appreciably, but that’s not the case here: it’s still a Greene King pub, it still serves decent, inexpensive food, and the staff are pleasant. The cask is in decent nick, which is nice, but it’s Greene King, which is less so, but it was my first pint of cask ale since November, so I’ll take that. There was decent lager for when I grew tired of GK.
Kinmel Bay, Rhyl:
Nothing out of the ordinary, a family feedbag and keg beer (and Doom Bar, so lager it was) place on the edge of Rhyl, probably catering for the nearby caravan parks. Good covid precautions, decent outside space, but nothing to write home about.
Bognor Regis, West Sussex:
A Brewer’s Fayre right on the seafront, and presumably trading on position alone.
I’ll start with the good: the staff were pleasant.
Nothing much else was: the solitary ale was Doom Bar. The place felt a little grubby throughout, and things were tatty- the fireplace with bricks missing, for a start. The pinnacle though, were the toilets: there was a notice saying they were regularly checked: presumably to check they were filthy enough: apparently the ladies was strewn with toilet paper, and had one broken seat and one broken door lock. The gents had every urinal bagged over, and no bog roll in one of the two cubicles.
While I’ve seen toilets as bad elsewhere, and kind of like tatty pubs, I’d expect the trade-off for a family feedbag to be that if the drinks choice is a bit crap and there’s no atmosphere, at least the place is clean….