Queen of the Iceni, Norwichback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
A large Wetherspoon's pub on the banks of the Wensum. It is very near Norwich Railway station: I'd say about 300 metres. It is in a very modern entertainment complex (bowling, restaurants, trampolining etc).
The staff were young and enthusiastic, but one of them went past my table at least a dozen times and left a half-dozen glasses on the table.
I was pleased to see that it was popular with less able people, because it is fully wheelchair accessible and of course has a wheelchair-accessible toilet. BUT BE WARNED the standard toilets are up a very tall flight of stairs, with glass sides. Quite vertiginous.
They had some great Norfolk beers. I had a breakfast there as well and it was very good.
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ok WSP, nice beer , nice prices,
teenage staff in la la land ( plus ca change )
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This Wetherspoon's pub was the closest to my Norwich Hotel and therefore useful. And that's about it. Nice riverside location, usual menu of beer & food, usual mix of punters. That was day one, the second day was a match day for the local team & it is also the closest to the stadium. A sea of yellow, no chance of being served. Instead of going to one of the many restaurants in the precinct (also rammed but a bit quieter) I went to the Bridge Tavern adjacent to the Iceni, a pub apparently not in your excellent database. It was relatively free of people, probably because it is a poor pub. One table had at least 4 generations of a family, obese & tattooed (except for great grandad, who I think was dead) & the babies. Their language was fruity, to say the least, and the football fans wisely swamped the Wetherspoon's rather than this sorry place.
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The service at the bar may be polite, but don’t be surprised when the wrong food order is brought to your table because the manager has given your meals to the wrong table that arrived after you.
To top it off the burgers will be dry and if you can find any member of staff that can actually identify anything off the menu then your lucky.
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a Lloyds number 1 in a modern area of bars,restaurants and clubs, 2 minutes from the rail station.big bar overlooking the river,had a good breakfast in here today.only 5 real ales with guest from woodfordes and wolf.how people can drink at 10 am I will never know,i hope.
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Agree with previous review that only five beers to choose from is very poor for a 'spoons' pub.
Take away the usual Greene King crap and only Nelson's Revenge and Golden Jackal were worth having.
Six banks of shiny pipes dispensing lager got more priority.
Improvement in food (not that that is hard to do).
Two steaks, two ribs, four drinks and a bottle of wine all for £34 - can't be bad.
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Handy boozer for both Carrow Road and the station.
Very large inside, on two floors, with plenty of seats outside near the river too.
Five ales on tap - not the most overly inspired selection, with Broadside being the best option. Still, at �1.99 a pint you can't quibble too much.
Staff were attentive and helpful, although saying that it was a relatively quite afternoon when we visited.
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Big and busy. Miserable podgy barmaid with no sense of humour. Can't fault the beer at these prices and the lasagne was fine too. Sat outside and slightly bothered by a bunch of lager louts - men in their late 20s, shirts hanging out, effin this and effin that, getting primed for a night out on the tiles. Got talking to a friendly steward from the football stadium. Much preferred the Glasshouse.
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I was here last Saturday but unlike kgilson it was not quiet.
Just after 11.00 am and its match day @ Carrow Road and already the replica shirts are gathering. O and there are goons on the door too.
Only 5 hand pumps here, lowest I've known for a JDW pub.
3 were for Woodfords Werry and 2 for some other less known ale which I can't remember the name of. I had a pint of Wherry @ �2.40 and it was quite nice but spoilt a bit by being served in plastic.
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Thumbs up for doing a few real ales, including a local Wolf Straw Dog, but served way too cold.
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Went in here 3 days out of 4 while visiting Norwich through the week. I have no idea what this pub is like in the Evenings, or at weekends, but through the week between 2pm, and 4pm when we visited it was excellent. I was served by attentive friendly staff right way on all trips to the bar as it is very quiet at this time of day. The upstaris, and downstairs is very nicely spread out, and the customers at this time of the day seem to be of the older generation, so it's peaceful. All our food orders had the items expected, and cooked very well. I consider this an above average Wetherspoons pub. If you want a good meal in a non rowdy atmosphere where you can relax then I highly recommend this place on weekday afternoons. Toilets are upstairs by the way.
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Went in here on Saturday as an away fan when Hartlepool were playing. Got in at about 1pm and it was quite busy. Pleased to say that despite the crowds there was never a long wait for a drink and ther was space available to avoid the crush.
The Carlesberg was terrible, although I would not normally drink this stuff its just I was driving! They were using glasses as well as plastic which was surprising but appreciated.
Got to say that for a busy match-day pub there was little Police presence and no safety worries at all. Its unusual for everyone to be SO friendly! There was one strange bloke stood underneath the stairs who was rather excitedly singing on his own as his mates looked on embarrassingly. We also saw him in the ground doing the same thing. I am not sure that he gets out much.
I did enjoy being in here and it was great for meeting other away fans as a good few Pools had made a bee-line here.
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I must be biased as a bit of a 'Spoons fan, but I have to say I like this pub. I wonder how many people, who seem to get some kind of kick out of criticising JD pubs, secretly spend most of their drinking time in them. It's simple, if you don't like them go elsewhere.
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Agree with previous comments, chav heaven - BUT we hit it when Wetherspoons were doing their Real Ale Festival, which puts a different perspective on things. Vikings Return (too stouty for me), and Bonkers Conkers were among a wide range of fine beers on offer
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am regular in this pub, go there a few times a week for drinks and sometimes food.
rated it quite good untill the other day when me and my partner were having a meal, he finished before me and his plate was taken away BEFORE i had finished my meal, then to add insult to injury my plate was then taken away WHILE i was still eating !!!!!! VERY RUDE
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Now i know it's got it's bad points, but i love this place. Great for a few beers, a sporting event, music, food, & even during the day for a cuppa. Set by the river & a stones throw from other bars, restaurants, a multiplex & the railway station you cannot go wrong. Friendly staff but i just wish the manageress would smile once in a while.
darky - 15 Oct 2007 16:01 |
if you want to visit this pub at the weekend GO EARLY!! If you don't you'll be waiting forever to get to the bar, you'll have to squeeze past leering old men who still think they're 19 and you're bound to get a drink spilled on you. Be prepared for everyone you meet to have some kind of link with Norwich Union Insurance. However, good pub in the summertime as there is plenty of seating by the river. The toilets are upstairs, be careful on this staircase ladies if you wear heels. It can be a bit tricky at times.
anonymous - 13 Dec 2005 19:33 |
dull place, just very plain. Cheap though!
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Somewhere there has to be a merchant produced brochure of Norwichs Riverside area, and I`m positive that within it they would describe this large Lloyds as the �jewel in the crown of the most happening district in the county�. Unfortunately, despite the streams of publicity that this bar gets across Norwich I`m afraid my own description would be something more akin to �the biggest turd on the compost heap of Norwich most classless and chav happy backstreet�.
It really is difficult to know where to start with this one � so spoilt am I for ugly features that require a well-placed boot. I suppose a good place to deliver the first kick is the clientele, which on most weeknights as well as the weekends is quite simply awful. Wall to wall scum, chavs, arseholes, pissed up students, violent footie fans and a whole menagerie of grossly tartish females whose very presence is enough to put you off the whole concept of reproduction for life. In short, like all Lloyds, it�s a magnet for undesirables who are simply orgasmic that their definition of a classy joint (i.e. it has a few washed surfaces and functioning urinals) has a pricing policy that allows them to even step through the doors.
Naturally violence tends to be high on the agenda for most evenings which at least is a distraction from how boringly bland the place is (glistening surfaces, IKEA sofas, assembly kit tables etc) and the throbbing sound system that blasts out the latest girl band track completely out of synch with the cheap big screen projector that dominates one of the white washed walls. And to top off the disappointment, the drink selection is typically non-existent and the food tastes like heated up cardboard.
Are there any redeeming features? Well, I suppose its pretty spacious, cheap and the outside area over looking the canal is relatively nice in the summer, though you will have to get used to the sound of repetitive football chants if you intend to stay there for more than 10 mins.
In short � avoid
2/10
anonymous - 2 May 2005 13:31 |
As someone new to the Norwich Gay scene I was pleased to visit such a lovely place. So much better that the haunts I used to visit in Nottingham. Top Tunes (Kylie, Atomic Kitten etc) made me feel totally camped up. Choo Choo to Norwich! I look forward to my future visits.
Ruby Rubes - 14 Sep 2004 11:42 |
mmmmmm, well what can I say about this....typical chain pub, no character full of people out to get drunk......please will people try to stop throwing up all over the place.....just for one night would be nice
no longer a customer - 26 Jul 2004 21:21 |
I'm not a great lover of chain pubs but for some reason I love this place. Very spacious (including an outside terrace), cheap booze, good music and videos, and lots of lovely ladies. A good night out for 20-somethings. 8/10
Steven - 26 Jul 2004 18:46 |
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