BITE user comments - fluffy_mike
Comments by fluffy_mike
What an excellent pub: friendly staff, relaxing interior, and they make an effort to invite good musicians every week. Better than 99% of the pubs in London, I'd reckon, though not in a flash or showy way. Highly recommended just for being somewhere to loosen up effortlessly after a busy day...
16 Aug 2011 21:29
Unpretentious, friendly, great location, good beer... so much better than the dreadful chain pubs upriver at Dobbs Weir and Lower Nazeing
25 Jul 2011 14:40
Went here after a pleasant bike ride up the River Lea. Great location, with huge terrace overlooking the waterway.
Menu is extensive and reasonably priced, though only a single veggie main course (risotto), which seems a bit slack nowadays. How hard is it to put a vegetarian pasta or similar on there too?
The terrace is filthy: dirty paper napkins and fag butts everywhere. It clearly doesn't get cleaned very often, once a week or less is my guess.
The bar area is ridiculously dark, but at least it wasn't too busy and the staff friendly enough in non-committal kind of way.
The beer is like brown tap water.
The lowlight of our visit, however, was asking the barmaid to put the TV on in the bar so my friend and I could watch the last half hour of the Tour de France. She said no initially, and when we asked again she spoke to the manager who also declined but without making an appearance.
Being very keen to watch the event, we asked her (very nicely) to bring him out to tell us why - there's a small lounge area next to the bar where the TV is and no-one was sitting there,so we couldn't see any reason why having the TV on would interfere with anyone else's enjoyment.
Anyway, the manager came out and told us that he couldn't put the TV on because head office forbade it, and the last time he'd put the TV on without their permission he'd got a bollocking from some roving inspector type.
We left.
It's a sad day when bar managers are unable to use their judgement to decide what's the most suitable course of action in their own pub.
In a nutshell, one's forced to conclude that this hostelry is the epitome of mediocrity, run by a combination of spineless automatons and suited marketing executives with no thought for their customers beyond their (no doubt) massive profit margins.
Avoid this place before it eats into your soul...
23 Jul 2011 23:19
Ten years ago this was the pub for lock-ins. Guaranteed boozing till ridiculously early hours with a pretty scary bunch of people, though it didn't really matter as you wouldn't go there unless you were stupidly high or absolutely shitfaced. It had a makeover in the mid-noughties, after which it was a pleasant trendy pub but usually empty. Now turned into a block of flats.
21 Sep 2009 08:13
"don't go there too often as it can get a bit samey" - haha, it's incisive comments like these that keep me coming back to this site :-)
13 Dec 2008 13:22
Good pub with large garden, but slow service on Friday night - enough staff, but they were frustratingly slow and spent too much time fannying around crushing ice and chopping fruit when they should be serving thirsty punters
13 May 2006 13:17
The Ashburnham Arms, Greenwich
Friendly pub, with decent food and beer. Away from the town centre, but still has a steady stream of customers, especially on quiz night. Definitely a locals pub, but worth a journey if you're looking for pretty corner of Greenwich for a pint.
19 Apr 2013 11:21