please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Excellent choice of real ales - straight from the barrel - at the end of a beer festival.
Unfortunately, the beer was at the end of its life. I had to take a couple of pints back.
I was disappointed with the dinning tables, very cheap looking, sticky (as were the menus) and not cleared after its previous occupants.
As for the condiment trays, don't bother. Plenty of empty bottles on a side table, but the full ones were on the floor spilling out their contents.
The toilets were in a much better state than the pub, tidy and clean.
All this place needs is a bit of TLC and a manager with a bit of respect for his customers and proud of his organisation.
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Large city centre pub full of Chavs ok for a quick pint lunch time but well avoided in the evening as full of clubbers and loud music.
Beer is very hit and miss although the Skinners Heligan Honey on tap on my visit was quite acceptable. Food not up to much.
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A massive wetherspoons right in the city centre. The pub is set on diferent levels with a reasonable beer garden. The trouble is that this is really a truely awful place full of the usual wetherspoons lot. The food we ordered was a total cock-up, wrong meals, then cold, brought out at different times. We had a refund and went down to the gog and magog on the barbican which was much better. 2/10
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Not a very good wetherspoons by a long way all the comments here relate to similar experiences that i have had.
�2.90 is a lot for a spoons pint of carling which is what i had.
Would give it a 5/10 at the very most
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shocking pub. ordered a pint only to be told it was off. asked for a wine only to be told they had no clean wine glasses. ordered food and when it came it was still frozen in the centre. avoid.
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absolutly appauled by this pub visited today with my partner an 2 children to order drinks an was told children couldnt be in the premises unless ordering food due to licencing laws i personally have never heard of this i was disgusted with the womans attitude behind the bar we was asked to leave even though my children were as good as gold could any 1 shed some light on this matter if she was right to throw us out due to not being aloud children in there unless u order food we have been to plenty of other weatherspoon outlets an never expierieced this sort of discrimination
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It is two years since I last came to this pub, and little has changed. Again calling in prior to the Plymouth fest, and again being disappointed. The Cotleigh Albatross should have been a great beer at 6.5% but was rubbish. Did try another beer but they could really do with someone to keep their cellar in this Wetherspoons.
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This is one wetherspoons where you will not get a good pint of ale. The beer is usually stale and badly kept. I suspect this is because it is mainly a lager drinkers' pub. The staff are a bunch of useless spiky haired wombats and there has been no obvious sign of an adult there to manage them whenever I have visited.
General atmosphere of squalor and barely supressed violence.
Jay28 - 10 Apr 2008 11:00 |
was wondering if it was ok for a male bouncer and male manager to follow my girlfriend and her friend into the tiolet wen the club was empty? after saying i want a piece of that wen i we were stood together. then started getting violent wen they saw me stood outside the tiolet waiting for them to come out safely.
is there a law against it because if i was not there what could have happened??
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As a plymouth lad,ive called in this place on a few occasions,if your a real ale man/woman,dont go in here,the duty manager is never around,if they have a cellarman they dont know their job,it a truely awful experience going in here,the main stay of the staff are students,who generally serve their mates from the uni before you.As a member of CAMRA ive had run ins with the staff in here on more than 1 occasion.The ale festivals that wetherspoons run in here are a waste of time,in the in-house magazine,wetherspoon pubs state the ale of their pubs should be served at between 11-13 cent,a glass of real ale in the union rooms comes out at the same temperature as the lager thet sell between 2.0-2.5cent.
I strongly recommend ale drinkers to call in the mannamead or brittania if they want to go to a wetherspoons for a drink and something to eat,both of which serve real ale at the correct temperature and they change their ales very regularly.I just wish the staff at union rooms payed attention to their jobs and deliver to paying customers a service that they deserve,instead of clowning around,serve you when they see fit,serve luke warm food and have attitude problems,oh yes,and get the ale sorted out,i cant understand for the life of me how it gains a cask marque certificate.very very poor!! avoid this place if you can.
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I was a visitor for the Plymouth beer festival and called in on the Thursday when looking for the festival venue. This is a poor Wetherspoons. The tables were disgusting. I had to move plates and glasses, then found the table itself was so sticky and grubby a cloth must not have been over it for days. There was a poor beer choice for a Wetherspoons, considering the town would be full of beer tickers for the festival. We were going to have a breakfast on the Friday there, but considered it too dirty a pub on the customer side to take a risk with the meals from the kitchen.
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I think by now that most people who walk through the doors of a Wetherspoons establishment can safely predict what will ensue. I admit that I like many aspects of their formula, despite it being the absolute antithesis of genuine, individual pubs of character and atmosphere.
On previous returns to my home city, I always found a trip here to be enjoyable - the service quick (and notably friendly), the place itself capacious and remarkably clean. Sadly my visit last Thursday dispelled all previous experiences. From the moment I entered, that patented Wetherspoons 'stale vomit' air freshner was apparant throughout the pub. Most tables were strewn with empty glasses or plates. And this was midday.
Upon reaching the bar I was ignored for several minutes, despite it being quite obvious that I was next in turn. As is the apparent Wetherspoons principle, there were far too few staff. I was only served by virtue of another customer telling the young lady on the bar that I had been there before her.
Having eventually been served, I repaired to a stool on the second level to enjoy my beer which was, in fairness, a very good pint of Directors. I was then glowered at by an obviously upset local, who seemed intent on inflicting Bodily Harm on me. We stared each other out for a while, and then he threw up on his stool and left. Nice. I made haste towards The Bank, a few minutes walk away, which was a far more enjoyable experience.
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Now re-branded as a Lloyds No 1 bar.... what a nightmare. First the prices went up, not by too much but up, not down. Then the music starts, by 8 pm you cannot hear anything. Not a pub anymore in the evening. Not a place to socialise with your mates and have a chat.
Frankly completely ruined the place.
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It is an absolute chav city shithole. I am not anti Spoons (have even given a few of them a good review) but the nationofjames review in May 2004 still holds good. Appalling service (try to get food any time after 1300h and see if you fancy the hour's waiting time) and totally grim atmosphere. An industrial drinking factory if that it what you fancy............
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Everyone says it's so cheap in here, I don't reckon so! I think they are expensive considering Destiny Nightclub have all drinks 4 �1.50 .... but a great, relaxed pub and has a great beer garden... I do like it...
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well i work at the union rooms and find it quite a fun job the no music atmosphere is good cus u can actually hear ur customers and wot they want instead of screamin at them!!! wen ppl say if there was music there would be more ppl there, then they should try goin in on a saturday then u'll see jus how busy the place is... and why are ppl complain about theis place??? its close to all the main clubs in plymouth!!! it has the cheapest drinks and pretty decent food!!! and servce to the best of standards for the amount of staff... all in all i enjoy this pub i even like it enough to work ther eand socialise there!!!
Tommy - 6 Oct 2004 10:36 |
An eerie sense of impending violence pervades throughout this souless shopping mall of a pub. It really is awful, even by Weatherspoons standards. The bouncers give you aggro, takes ages to get served, they're rushing to chuck you out as soon as last orders is called and the place is far too big and bright for it's own good. Moor fool ye who goes there mind becuase it's obvious the moment you walk through the door what this place is all about.
Good for: Well, it's a stones throw from the top of Union Street, what do you think.
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prices are amazingly cheap!!! i can get hammered in there for a tenner :-)wheh hey!! the reason for no music is to let people go out to socialise and communicate rather than screaming to each other over deafening music.If you dont want to chat to your mates, fine go to jesters!!! :-)
Laura - 2 Mar 2004 16:49 |
Plymouth goes from 1 to 4 Wetherspoons in the space of a year and that has to be bad news. Regulation set of ales? Check. Nice toilets? Check. Bar staff forced to be impersonal industrious robots? Check. Cheap microwaveable ready meals masking as food? Check. Total disrespect towards the importance of authentic, individual drinking establishments to human culture and general happiness? Indeed.
Mel - 2 Feb 2004 01:19 |
i to agree background music would be good. But I had a good time in there when England beat the Aussies and there was no need for me music everyone was merry and singing.
Robert - 22 Jan 2004 14:22 |
yeah the pub itself is ok mostley clean and bouncers are friendly but the fact that they dont play any sort of music is a bit off putting the atmosphere isnt the best ive seen in a pub and i think that if they played some sort of back ground music they would find alot more ppl in ther!!
Jacqueline - 8 Jan 2004 23:13 |
overall its a good pub with plenty of room and reasonable prices and friendly atmosphere
john grant - 11 May 2003 09:33 |
well i was in there last night the bell rang for last orders ,we were still able to get a drink at 23.15 so i went to the toilet at 23.20 on my way out i put some money in the fruit machine it came up with 7 nudges and i still had some of my own money in there ,the bouncers came up and told me to get out and wouldnt let me finish or pick up my winnings,well if you dont want the machines to be used after a certain time why dont you turn them off, i was totally disgusted as i lost money
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these pubs are brilliant value,we all had a meal the other day at mannamead another wehterspoon , it was great value well cooked,and very customer service focused, which i think is very important.the kids i have my daughter 16 twins 10, were welcomed into the pub, and enjoyed the meal very well,beats mc donalds wre there words.keep up the good work...jo
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