Plum Tree, Swindonback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
closed Now a Chinese eat all you want
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Went in while waiting for Wyvern to finish: found someone playing some covers, and what looked like a token real ale attempt. Overall, a definite improvement on what it has been like, but gave the feel of someone with energy, ideas; but not a lot of patience or the experience to know how to make it work :-(
This place has got to get a personality: it can't compete with Wetherspoons at what Wetherspoons do best. Could target people not wanting to be ripped off by the Wyvern before/in interval? Families not wanting to go in amongst the Savoy's cheap booze brigade? Build on the space to have some more local musician spots? Lots of options in this building, but it needs vision (and more cash?)...
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Still had the Marstons signs up and had their beers on (well I say "on" - actually most of the pump clips were turned round which left just one beer available) so we decided to move on - not too far actually as the Savoy (Wetherspoons) is next door and a much better bet.
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The Plum Tree has now been taken over by Ringside Taverns - a new player in the pub game.
The place remains pretty much the same as ever. Neither particularly good nor bad. The 'unsavory bloke' is still there propping up the bar. Perhaps he's a major shareholder.
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We have been here before and always wondered how the place remained open considering there hardly seems to be anyone in there. An experience yesterday proved why...
First of all, there was only one staff member behind the bar whilst there was people waiting almost 15 minutes to be served.
Then when we got our food (a vegetable lasagne and a cheese and broccoli bake) the waiter announced them the wrong way around and my friend and I ended up with each other's food and sadly we had dug into the dish before we realised because they were covered in cheese so looked exactly the same!
Now ordinarily I like vegetable lasagne so I thought I would be fine with that one - wrong. It was mostly pasta with a huge amount of cheese and hardly any vegetables. I tried to eat it but really didn't enjoy it, so when I pointed this out to a staff member I was informed that they could do another broccoli bake for me but I would be charged for it. I refused! So I ended up eating something I didn't enjoy purely because someone else had made an error and wanted me to pay for it. Er, no thanks.
The barman was very apologetic and said that he is normally in the kitchen and will personally guarantee that next time I will get the food I requested - but to be honest I don't know if I will go in there again though. I made some recommendations as to how to distinguish the foods from each other (i.e. put a slice of tomato on the top of the veg lasagne, or a little flag of some sort identifying what the food is!) so it would be interesting to see if that happens... what would they have said if I was a vegetarian and had been given a meat lasagne, and not realised until I had cut into it?!?? Or even if I had an allergy to something in the lasagne that was not in the B&C bake - would they have expected me to pay extra then?
Apparently the venue is being taken over in January 2011 - we can see why.
Shame this has happened - the pub itself is a lovely building.
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Not a bad pub. Food is expensive but quite good for this sort of establishmemt. Bar service is efficient and friendly.
It is however, one of those pubs that has an unsavoury 'bloke' who you can guarantee - whatever day or time you go in - will always be propping up the bar in a state of semi-inebriation. I think he must live in there - probably in a cupboard.
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To someone new to Swindon, this looks like it should be a good slightly upmarket pub given its food menu.
However the beer is not kept very well and lacking in choice. I have visited three times and the bar service is terrible. Often left unattended during the day leaving you waiting for service. The manager seems to favour serving family and friends first and not that welcoming.
For real ale your probably better off at The Glue Pot or one of the Weatherspoons in town.
All the promise of what could be a great pub, but not quite there yet.
Never been in the evening though to be fair.
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This place in days of yore was called the Riflemans and was a pretty grim Banks house for a while. To be honest until last week I'd never set foot in the place but a mate and his wife suggested it for a meal so I met up with them. Dissapointing beer selection, just Marstons Pedigree, but its now a 'Chefie' pub according to the sign outside so I expected the worst.
The interior is polished wood floors, wooden tables and chairs and sofas, the menu covered a lot of ground and seemed a tad expensive until I realised that if you bought 2 meals you got the second less expensive one for free. In fact the pub grub was very good, a thai red curry, a steak and kidney pudding and a ham and cheese salad were all pronounced to be excellant, full marks to the bloke who served them even when he spilt a jug of hot gravy all over his hands he still managed not to drop the meals!
Strange place though, closed up at 2100, although this end of Swindons pathetic town centre is even deader than the rest.
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