The Kite Inn (Morrells)
Mill Street, New Osney, Oxford
Monday to Friday 11am to 2pm, 7pm to 11pm
Saturday 10.30am to 2pm, 7pm to 11pm
Sunday 12.15pm to 3pm, 7pm to 10.30pm
Morrells Oxford Bitter £1.75
Morrells Varsity Bitter £1.90
Strongbow Cider £2.10 (11.iii.1998)
Much as Tom describes it below, this is a red-tinted pub with two sorts of
bitter on cask, friendly service, four sorts of wall-covering and
compare-and-contrast photographs of the St Thomas/New Osney area of Oxford
in 1918 and 1993. It seemed to be much less of a tip in those days.
The other thing about this pub is that they do breakfasts, though the
usefulness of this is impeded by the opening hours. The Brewery Gate a few
minutes along the road in St Thomas might be better from that point of
view.
Interview conducted with Tom Weston
What's the first thing you notice about this pub?
The strong "local" atmosphere.
What does the pub look like on the inside?
Slightly shabby. Unfortunately dominated by a large TV, usually tuned to
Sky.
What's the clientele like?
See first question.
What's the service like?
Extremely friendly.
What sort of person would you recommend it to?
Anyone looking for a quiet pint. I think it's probably the best of a bad
lot in that stretch of road.
Any other comments?
It's likely that it might be full of Engineering students as well.
Tom Weston, thank you.
Guy Towlson updates:
It has been largely, but not entirely, repainted inside and out, and now
sports a menu of the reasonably predictable medium-sized pub chain bar
menu type: bacon and mushroom baguette (tried and was done well), assorted
steak variants and sausage and mash (off at the time, as they'd had a run
on sausages). Oddly chips are as a 'special' side dish - which appeared to
mean that they came with one of three sauces (of which the tomato ketchup
option is available with the cutlery anyway) and that they were more
expensive than they should be. Otherwise the prices varied in an
acceptable manner.
They were out of one of the 'Morrells of Oxford, brewed in Timbuktu'[1] at
the time of visit, but the other was OK. Not a vast selection otherwise,
and nothing of particular interest that I noticed. Can't remember the
angle, so it can't have been too bad. (27.iii.2001)
[1] Legal note: Morrells of Oxford's beers are brewed by the Thomas Hardy
brewery in Dorset, not in Mali.