BITE user comments - BallaBoy
Comments by BallaBoy
Now firmly established as my local, and has definitely grown into itself. Beer is good, food is up to the mark and the re-design inside has gradually taken shape. Along with the Antelope, is now highly recommendable to anyone looking for a good pint in Tooting.
14 Nov 2011 09:36
Nice pub with a good cider and beer range. Nice outdoor space, good food, friendly staff and an interesting range of entertainment. Liek the reviewer below, I'd put it alongside the Antelope (and increasingly the ever improving Wheatsheaf) in terms of the best pubs in Tooting.
12 Jul 2011 13:52
Visible progress here, but it does feel like maybe the money isn't there to throw it into shape quickly.
Furniture is definitely a bit past the "shabby" end of shabby chic, but the painting seems to have been completed.
The outside area at the back could do with some attention, and it all still feels a bit like a work in progress.
Some activity in the way of comedy club etc, some good beer on tap but fingers crossed for its continued development.
13 Jun 2011 14:02
It's criminal what they're doing to this place, though I guess the perception of that is relative. In most pubs the provision of Pualaner and Fanziskaner on draught and Sierra Nevada in bottles would be a welcome departure from the cooking lager/london pride selection available everywhere else.
But not when you consider where this pub was a few months ago. Maredsous blonde and brun and others no longer on tap, bottle selection massively reduced, food menu has lost most of the dutch specialities.
This pub had a pretty unique offering for the area, and is now seemingly changing direction to offer beers that I can get in several other places in the west end.
Given that the whole point of the place was beer, and that is was pretty much permanently busy, you'd hope that whoever is responsible for this debacle will be sent to the library with a revolver and a pint of port in the near future.
24 Feb 2011 17:58
As a fan of what Antic have done at The Antelope, I hope this is still a work in progress. Much improved selection of beers (though I wish people would offer real American craft beers rather than the Coors marketing stunt that is Blue Moon), but the overhaul doesn't seem to have gotten very far.
The old tatty furniture has been replaced with other, tattier furniture. There are a selection of rather odd cheap MDF shelving units holding various things that seem to have been culled from local charity shops.
The repaint seems to be part completed. The reshaping of the bar has opened the place up, but they don't seem sure what to do with the space.
I don't know if this is still in transition from the "pop up" phase - any clarification from Antic would be welcome - but I hope it is.
The Wheatsheaf is a big location, and I think it needs some real thought and flair to pull it together properly as a pub. The improvement on the beer front is a welcome first step, but I was left feeling that I was drinking in a rather spacious charity shop.
Much to do, I hope. It would be a tremendous waste if this is as far as it goes.
17 Jan 2011 14:49
Utterly foul. There on Saturday evening - tables evidently not cleared all day, drinks in plastic glasses, floor covered in beer, stench of stale beer from the bar, downstairs toilets could be smelled on the ground floor....
Need I go on? I'm amazed that they're allowed to sell food, to be honest.
25 Nov 2008 12:14
The Wheatsheaf, Tooting Bec
I don't know if there's been a change in terms of who's running the place, but have to agree with the comments below and have now largely abandoned what had for a while been a very promising spot.
The staff are awful. Genuinely awful. Food orders not taken properly, surliness when asked about them, generally "I'm far too cool to be serving you" attitude. If they spent less time talking to each other, comparing ironic haircuts and showing each other their piercings then the place would probably run a bit more smoothly.
The Meantime Pale Ale tap has had a glass sat on it for months. Really - stock the beer, or get rid of the tap. 5 or 6 real ale taps, usually no more than 2 on sale and these in pretty average condition. A real sense that there's no enthusiasm at all for beer from whoever is running the place now.
Bottled beer regularly emerges from the fridge warm. This can only be for one of two reasons - they're too idle to bottle up last thing at night, or someone doesn't know how to rotate bottle stock in a fridge.
All in, I can't remember the last time I encountered such a bunch of self regarding, miserable incompetents behind a bar. The average Wetherspoons crew are shining examples of the barman's craft in comparison.
Antic should turf every last one of them out on their ear.
11 May 2012 08:23