Yates's Wine Lodge, George Street

Monday to Saturday 11am to 11pm, Sunday 12 noon to 10.30pm
Food: Monday to Saturday 11am to 7pm, Sunday 12 noon to 7pm

Boddington's Bitter (3.9%) GBP 1.40
Courage Directors GBP 1.95
John Smiths Bitter GBP 1.95
Woodpecker Cider GBP 2.05
Dry Blackthorn Cider GBP 2.05
Murphy's Stout GBP 2.20 (19.v.1998)

There's something very odd about this.  Possibly it's the Stagecoach colour
scheme, or that it's a weird cross between Blackpool Pier, a Victorian music
hall and a Wild West saloon with fairy lights all round the top.  Perhaps I
should go back to the beginning:

You enter the pub to see a bewildering number of fonts and pumps.  Looking
carefully it appears to have threefold translational symmetry and instead of
nine different pumps, it only has three copies of three.  The Boddingtons came 
through a cooler and was quite unpleasant on account of this.

I don't need to tell you that the facilities are spotless. There wasn't  even
any wine visibly on sale.

Kate Pugh adds:
I agree with you about the colour scheme, but not the facilities. In the
ladies, one of the toilets didn't have a seat, and out of the four liquid
`soap' dispensers, one was dismantled and three were empty. 

I think you should be fair and put that the service is pretty friendly, at
least from the women. They seem to get on pretty well with many of the
customers. The bar`man' was quite sullen, though.

The food prices are very reasonable, but they stop serving at 7. They
also removed all the beer mats at around 6:30.

Ed Turner writes:
May be an acquired taste, but the food is cheap in the afternoons (eggs and
chips in a baguette for under GBP 3), nasty Worthingtons is GBP 1.25 a pint
between 2 and 8, and it is open until 1 am on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Definitely a place where it is wise to leave the college scarf and long black
overcoat at home, and avoid catching the eye of anyone's girlfriend (a friend
of mine left after a bit of a misunderstanding on the dance floor not long
ago), but otherwise a cheaper place to carry on drinking than DTMs or the Park 
End, especially at the weekend. (24.iv.2001)

Kate Pugh's full review appears in Vegan Oxford.

2002-07-13 / 1999-01-10 / 1998-05-19