BITE user comments - Hootch
Comments by Hootch
No great loss, this place lost it's soul years ago and we can do without another cloned gastro pub. Could have been arson by a patron waiting to get served :)
Why is the service in "modern" pubs so appalling, The Percy Arms set a benchmark for high prices and poor service, so few will miss it.
I truely hope a real publican takes it over and truns it back into a pub.
30 Aug 2011 12:03
Prices a little steep but the second choice pub for locals. Pleasant beer garden surrounded by greenery. Tow path walk nearby with beautiful rural vistas. Best to drink in the garden to avoid the loud music. Pleasant country pub, bring the family.
12 Jun 2008 12:49
The Queen Vic is where the Shalford locals drink for a reason - it's a genuine country pub, family friendly, with pub prices and cooked food. The owner ( Berger) mans the bar and whilst a little reserved is genuinely happy to chat with customers ( his preferred topic is cricket of which he has an encyclopedic knowledge). Old World charm and a place to relax, grab a proper country pub meal and settle in for the afternoon. Refreshing lack of loud music, just to murmur of conversation.
Plenty of parking outside and nearby in the Station car park. Beer garden and cosy outside provision for smokers.
This pub is on the ascendancy since the Seahorse became an expensive steel and glass restaurant for London day trippers.
Sure, the wellie and barbour clad locals will keep to themselves but that is part of the charm of this well run friendly local. Try engaging in conversation with them and you might find they are mostly London investment bankers in disguise.
12 Jun 2008 12:27
Mr Reasonable - I am a local and I suspect you won't be murdered by us but your sneering attitude is symptomatic of the Seahorse�s conceited new clientele. Most of us don�t have two heads and are generally commuters working in London. Some of us can even read and write. If we wanted to go to a �Publet� like the new Seahorse, we would stay in London because there are thousands of them in Clapham alone ! That�s why you won�t see many locals in the place, The Seahorse is just another theme pub on the back end of a dying trend. People want the genuine article nowadays and there is nothing genuine about The Seahorse apart from it�s tackiness.
Conglomerate owned and run by disengaged gel monster yoofs wearing �corporate� style shirts referred to as �staff�, with interchangeable names. Who let Laurence Llewelyn-Bown loose in this place without supervision? Only a matter of time before the banners appear for �Live Football and Karaoke�. The only thing keeping the chavs at bay with their Sunday best football strips and white trainers, wafting in a cloud of �Lynx effect� are the outrageous prices.
�Smart, cool and trendy�? For who exactly? Cheap Burton suits with �footballers fist knot� ties and pointy shoes kind of trendy? Maybe in West London but in Surrey it stands out like a missing tooth.
We used to go to the Seahorse on a regular basis because it was a family friendly local pub where you could settle in a comfortable leather chair and relax. We are no longer welcome. New business model. The new Seahorse is not designed to welcome locals, it is designed to separate people from their money as quickly as possible, hence the visual pollution and uncomfortable straight backed seating. An hour in the Seahorse is like sitting in a room filled with white noise, but you pay �100 for the pleasure.
Very much for London day trippers with more money than taste or husbands pressed into taking the Missus out for a �posh meal� and being too embarrassed to mention the true size of the bill, alleviating their discomfort by declaring it to be �quality food� because they don�t know any better .
Yes, best to drive to avoid the web fingered locals �� but my advice is to keep driving to the Queen Vic, Compton or Wonersh where you can still find the genuine article, but Mr Reasonable, please stay away because that�s where you will find the Shalford locals!
12 Jun 2008 11:46
What a disaster.
What was once a friendly, welcoming, comfortable place has become a mixed and conflicting train crash that is somewhere between a faux tapas bar and a Pret-a-Manger!
It had to be designed by a footballer�s wife � the new interior virtually screeches at you.
I still can�t work out what the new d�cor is supposed to be or what market it is aimed at, although this is a restaurant now aimed at the under 30 market. What was a comforting, relaxing place to have a pint or two by the fire whilst reading the generously provided weekend papers is now glass and steel and very �.. well �.. beige. I challenge anyone to find a comfortable seat, the new seating is horrible and those spotlights ��. Everywhere! To suggled to find a place to sit without a spotlight burning into my face.
This place will have to be re-decorated within five years, the new look will date quickly, it�s cheap and tacky anyway.
Surly and disinterested staff.
Cripplingly expensive though (Steak dish is close to �20 and even a burger is �10). I could easily see a meal for two with drinks being close to �100.
Expensive tourist trap.
25 Mar 2008 10:16
The Queen Victoria, Shalford
Disaster!
I went in today and saw the "refurb" - basically yet another boring grey themed chain pub now. The atmosphere has been ripped out and it looks like the interior of a McDonalds. A couple of stunned locals sitting there not knowing what to think - is it a pub, an expensive restaraunt of a Doctors surgery??
I mean white furtniture in a pub - what a joke!
Can't see Live Music happening anymore the interior just doesn't suit anymore
No doubt the menu ( when / if) it is back on will be £30 burgers.
A real shame.
Keep going to Wonersh, the Grantly still does the traditional pub thing
19 Feb 2013 21:30