please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Went in yesterday afternoon, very nice pint of Whitstable Bay although quite pricey at £3.10. Only a few pople in when I visited but the service was very friendly. There's a few chairs outside on the pavement ideal for us smokers.
tanky - 25 Jun 2008 12:09 |
The beer is excellent, with a good range, albeit not exactly cheap. But the interior is a bit grotty. Its still in early 1980's cheap wood panelling, with scuffed carpet and poor lighting. The toilets certainly need an upgrade!
It could be that the students who make up much of the trade don't really care, but they could make it really good, for relatively little effort. I don't want to sit in what looks like a past-its-best student union bar (done that), and the location and product deserve better.
MikeB - 27 Apr 2008 15:58 |
Gotta love gem gems...the best barmaid in King's Cross.....I love you Gemma.....will you marry me????
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Full of butch, hairy, predatory lesbians. If you have a half decent girlfriend, don't take her here; she'll be leered at by these vile 'women'. I am not joking either - this is a terrible place.
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Called in here on way home from London Drinker Beer Festival and had an excellent pint of Spitfire. Beer was good but a bit pricey. The food was OK and the service was great.
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Mable's is a fairly solid and reliable pub but prices are a bit expensive. Don't know if it's just me but the Shepherd Neame Porter seems a bit lacklustre recently.
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Sky and real ales is an all too infrequent combination. £3.05 for a Late Red.
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Came here after a visit to Sheffield with London Saints. Nice little pub but I'm just not sre about the Shephern Neame beers. Had the Late Red and Master Brew and neither set the world alight. To be fair I'd already had about 7 pints and had been to the Devonshire Cat so maybe not a good time to rate it. Worth a visit though.
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Very enjoyable pint in this nice, quiet pub. Service good, beer well kept.
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Great little pub, nice atmosphere, fast service, bar staff could smile a bit more. Food enjoyable if a bit pricey.
anonymous - 28 Aug 2007 12:54 |
not bad at all, especially for the area, always found the beer well kept.
mps77 - 13 Aug 2007 13:27 |
nice little place off the beaten track and all the better for it, decent pint as well !!
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Full well-kept range of Shepherd Neame beers. Staff very friendly and helpful. Lovely pub.
daffy - 25 Jul 2007 09:45 |
A handy pub within very easy reach of Euston, St Pancras and King's Cross. The ales have been good on my visits.
alexw - 28 May 2007 16:05 |
well run friendly pub well kept Shep Neame Beers - shame i dont like them much !
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Don't let this place put you off Shepherd Neame beers. I've had some wonderful Shep beers elsewhere, but here they are pretty tasteless.
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All the bar maids are chubby but sexy.
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Stumbled on this place one day after work when I had some time to spare before meeting a friend. Thought it was unusual to find a Shep's pub in this neck of the woods. Enjoyed a couple of beers and thought the atmosphere was pleasant enough. Beer quality was good and will certainly consider returning to try out the food. Good pub away from the madness and claustrophobic establishments of the Tottenham Court Road area.
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Not sure if this place has changed drastically since the CAMRA North London award, but I honestly can't see what it did to warrant the award. Spent an early evening in here last weekend. Football was on, and a number of "colourful" locals were in. Thankfully, the most over-served members of this contingent wandered off when the footie finished.
As ever, the Shepherd Neame ales are distinguished only by their total mediocrity. I swear I couldn't tell the Master Brew and Kentish Best apart. Didn't try the Bishop's Finger, and thankfully the Spitfire (aka Loony Juice) was off.
It's a shame, as I really like the look of the pub from the outside, and it's not too bad inside. There's a bit of effort gone into the menus - had a pleasant enough sarnie early on, which was satisfying and reasonably priced. But it looks a bit like the place is in danger of drifting quite badly into neglect. The prevailing smell in the bar is a none-too-pleasant nostalgic mix of stale tobacco and beer. The gents were fairly nasty, also.
Also, after the footie they switched the big screen to a piped-in music channel, which was just loud enough to be annoying.
By no means a bad pub, per se - but it really falls far short of justifying the award in my eyes.
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Odd place. Right next door to Unison (I think) but hidden away enough from the King's X outspiill to keep it reasonable. When I was here there was a crowd of Rugy league fans having a whale of a time and a load of union/office workers drinking away their Friday night.
Was fortunate enough to go with a mate who knows the landlord. Got a free drink out of it so it's bound to influence my rating. As far as local competition this is a decent place to go if you're not looking for a DJ bar, strip club or crappy station boozer.
You're most likely to end up here by mistake but if you do then it won't be the end of the world.
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I've only visited once so far & cannot see what the hype is about (if you can call CAMRA North London's recent award "hype". Some would say not). Perhaps my expectations were too high, because I came away a bit disappointed. Shepherd Neame beers are nice enough, the interior is fine but nothing out of the ordinary. Staff seemed a little on the surly side.
Not bad, but not especially good either.
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Good pub, I was surprised it was named pub of the year by the local CAMRA branch, but after a few visits can see what they were getting at. Full range of Shepherd Neame beers - Spitfire, Master Brew, Kent's Best and Bishop's Finger plus whatever the seasonal is (currently the fantastic Original Porter, try it before it is replaced with something insipid for spring). Beer always seems to be in top form.
The interior is large, comfortable and suitably pubby. Large screen TV above the bar, tuned into the football then MTV this afternoon.
Our chilled afternoon of drinking was turned into a lairier occassion when half the commies in Britain piled in - apparently their conference had just finished next door at the town hall. Tell you what, don't try humouring those folks - got quite far into a friendly convo with some of them, only to be suddenly turned on for suggesting perhaps George Galloway made a twat of himself on Big Brother. The ingratitude of it - you think they'd be grateful to be treated with anything other than open hostility by a random beer drinker set up by a thousand Citizen Smiths.
One major point for the management to note - your well-placed quizzer really needs something decent like Hangman's Haunted House or Millionaire however. Get it sorted - I'm shit at anything else.
Cheers
stonch.blogspot.com
anonymous - 7 Jan 2007 01:53 |
Not a regular visitor to this place, but when I do go the beer is always reliable. Another place worth remembering in the Euston / King's Cross / St Pancras area.
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Shepherd Neame ales in superb condition. Efficient service. Great!
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Great little pub this. Fantastic beers on, both quality and well kept real ales and nice foreign lagers.
The Late Red was fantastic and I can see why they won Shepherde Neame cellar of the year for 2005 and 2006. I can also see why they got the CAMRA Pub of the year for North London cuz I don't think I've had beer this well kept for a long long time.
Food menu looked good and the bowl of chips me and my mate shared was really good as pub chips go.
They have Sky Sports on big screen and also the elusive Premiership Plus pay-per-view channel.
Decor was a bit oldy woldy and sort of worked really.
I have to agree the atmosphe could've been better but it started to fill up mid-afternoon for the footy scores.
Well worth a few quiet beers here, highly recommended.
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Good Sheps beer, but not much else to recommend it.
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CAMRA North London pub of the year? I don't see it myself. It's OK, the Bishop's Finger and Masterbrew I tried were decent enough, but there are a much better pubs than this in North London. They had some cheesy 80's music TV channel on while I was in there which didn't add much to the 'atmosphere'. Next time I'm in the area I'll go to the Head of Steam instead.
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Visited last night for a few pints of the Bishop's Finger.It's an okay place but I'm really surprised that it won a CAMRA award,staff could do with a good manners course.
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Got invited by the rather enthusiastic manager to sort out their Digibox aspect ratios. Almost couldn't leave, as he wanted to go on and on!! :) A bit of a shame I couldn't sort it out before the end of the World Cup, but at least they have Sky Sports pub subscription here, so watch out for somre cricket and premiership action! Find out more about my pub widescreen campaign at www.radiofeeds.co.uk/wide
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Very ordinary pub, I cannot for the life of me think why it got voted north london pub of the year! Shep Neame beers are consistent, fine, but only consistently average. I can think of better pubs within a few minutes walk of here - the Lamb, the Lord John Russell, even the Head of Steam. Puzzled.
anonymous - 7 Jun 2006 15:38 |
Has just been voted Pub of the Year 2006 by CAMRA's North London Branch. That I find surprising, given some of the well-established real ale places their members drink in, like the Wenlock, the Head of Steam, the Packenham and the Oakdale. But all credit to the Mabel: it really has turned things around since being taken over by Shepherd Neame a few years ago. This success goes against the oft-expressed sentiment that the bigger SN have got, in terms of pub acquisitions, the worse their ale quality has become.
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An OK pub in an area struggling for them. OK beer, OK clietele, OK staff. So it's OK then
dodgy - 18 Apr 2006 08:43 |
Shepherd Neame acquired this haunted pub from Laurel Pub Company in 2002. Dublin born Mabel Macinelly and her cat Buster ran the Tavern until her death in 1972. Her ghost has been heard many times over the years. That story is the most interesting aspect of this otherwise quite ordinary but comfortable and pleasant pub.
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Previous postings refer to excessive smokiness: I can vouch for this, as I have known the individuals responsible for fifteen and twenty years respectively. The situation would be easily resolved if they started buying genuine fags rather than the fakes sold by dubious pikeys.
Other than that, the Mabel is a fine place although like the Head of Steam down the road it can at times suffer from sudden shortages of real ale. Not an ideal situation for the Mabel when their only choice is Shepherd Neame anyway!
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Fine Shepherd's Neame beers, plenty of seats, very few students. All in all a decent local though the story about the ghost of "Mabel" the owners try and ram down your throat is complete bullshit.
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Everything about Mabels is reasonable - the selection of drinks, the service, the food and the atmosphere. The only real blackmark is that for some reason when more than two smokers light up the interior becomes obscured in a fog so thick you can literally feel the cancer cells dancing on the inside of your lungs. Thankfully Mabels is rarely packed, but those wishing to live past 50 may wish to avoid Friday nights.
Apart from this health risk though there`s nothing to put any passer by off Mabels, but then there`s nothing that will particularly make the same casual drinker want to go back. Basically its the sort of average pub that you go to because its close to your work, and after a few consecutive visits you`ll suddenly find yourself sitting back and thinking - hmm, maybe I should go to that other close-by-average-pub for a few weeks ...
6/10
pgazz - 31 Mar 2005 18:13 |
Reasonable food, good beer, excellent venue for after work beers or lunchtime. Gets a bit smokey but you can't have everything
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Best pub in the area - A quiet sunday drink to recover from the weekend should be had nowhere else. Try Bishops Finger if you havnt already!
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This is the nearest pub to my hall, luckily however it is not full of students, as they all seem to have the impression that if somewhere serves drinkable beer then only 'sad old men' can go there. Fine by me, i hate student pubs. Anyway, the place is nice enough to sit in, decent range of shepherd neame beers, usually some combination of bishops finger, spitfire, master brew and a seasonal beer (the winter porter was fantastic). Prices are a little too high for me to spend too much time there (£2.75 for a pint of Spitfire last time i checked). Nice place though, reccomended.
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Came to the area to try the Head of Steam just by Euston Station but was forced to look for somewhere else because the H.o.S. was shutting early. Had a little wander around and found this place. I would describe it as vaguely pleasant but nothing special.. perhaps a little characterless. Tried the Spitfire bitter which was fine.
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The best pub in the area. Food is a bit expensive for what it is, but the staff are great and the beer is excellent. Well worth a visit.
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Best pub in the world, great beer, great food, really friendly bar staff.
Ben - 11 Nov 2004 17:01 |
Ah-ha, t'was me that organised the Undrink there, as the pub is just around the corner from Friend's Meeting House, having four ales and being haunted by Mabel herself, a cat owning local who works the non-existent dumb-waiter.
The staff are nice enough and the beer was good, it’s an honest, serviceable boozer that does food until 8.30pm.
Didn't make it down on Sunday night but never mind. On to UnCon 2005!
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Good range of beers, comfortable pub. I don't know about teachers but it was full of Forteans when I was in there....
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The beer here is really good and the place is nice - only problem being i'm a poor student and its pretty expensive.
Martin - 27 Oct 2004 23:19 |
Ten minutes walk from Kings Cross, this is my favourite North London pub. Excellent Shepherd Neame beers and good food at very reasonable prices. Teachers? It's right opposite the NUT headquarters.
Popper - 21 Oct 2004 20:43 |
first visit in about 10 years, still quite and friendly, well kep Shepherd Neame ales and a suprisingly good (i havnt sampled) looking wine list
Steve - 6 Sep 2004 17:44 |
could do with some pint jugs
anonymous - 27 May 2004 13:31 |
great pub near st pancras station good range of superb shepherd neame ales good tucker too
fat dog - 11 Apr 2004 20:14 |
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