BITE user comments - tdk
Comments by tdk
I came across this pub for the first time this evening and was very pleasantly surprised. The interior is beautiful - good mix of clientelle, friendly service and a very nice pint of Pride. A proper pub like this in central London? Surely some mistake!
26 Nov 2008 21:48
Sad to say, but the Priory is not half the pub it used to be. The recent refurbishment is half-baked and slightly bizarre (including little leatherette poufs that are so low you sit virtually at eye-level with your table).
The recent beer selection is also baffling. The Harvey's has gone and here is no regular session beer (the only constant beer is Summer Lightening) - and on a recent visit there was nothing below 4.5%, which makes no sense to me.
23 Nov 2008 13:34
The Seven Stars, Chancery Lane
One of my favourite pubs in London, full of character but definitely best visited when it's quiet. It gets very busy on weekday early evenings (although standing outside is fine in good weather as it's a pretty quiet backwater of a street).
The main letdown of this pub is that certain bar staff are very full of themselves, slow and rude - in particular, the two blokes. The women who work there are generally pretty pleasant.
The beer is generally pretty good. The food is excellent.
23 Nov 2008 13:28
The Priory is undoutedly a poorer pub than it was two years ago (when it was run by Gary & Nicky). You would have to be blind not to see that. Ask ANY regular and they will tell you the same. If the Priory is "unbeatable" in London then we're in trouble.
18 Mar 2007 22:14
LOL - I think you might be right about "the girls"! Agreed, I may have painted a slightly pessimistic image - just getting overly grouchy in my old age.
13 Dec 2006 16:46
I'd like to share your optimism Juzza. I don't know how regularly visit the Priory but I'm in there at least a couple of times a week and really feel that the place is going downhill quickly.
The television thing for me just represents the insensitivity with which the place is now run - this used to be quite a civilised pub where the main noise was conversation... it's now becoming the usual run-of-the-mill Sky Sports bars.
Have to disagree with you about the beer still being as good as before.
12 Dec 2006 13:39
Sad to say, but the Priory has seriously gone downhill since the old landlord & landlady Gary & Nicki left a couple of years ago.
The old Priory was a lovingly run, CAMRA-friendly local. The new landlord has let the place run down badly; the beer is nowhere near as good as before, the place is scruffy and the TV is usually blaring away regardless of anyone wanting to watch it.
A real shame and a disgrace the way this pub has been left to run itself into the ground. I give it 2 years before it's sold off and converted into "apartments".
11 Dec 2006 21:32
The Priory Arms, Stockwell
What a shame about the rotten current selection of bitters on offer in the Priory. They are a motley selection of very variable quality and don't appear to be selected with any thought whatsoever.
There is no regular session beer (other than Summer Lightening) which is a joke. Surely this pub is no longer taken seriously by the once ever-present CAMRA crowd?
Overall, the pub looks like it's been cheaply tarted up to appeal to a student/gastro crowd, but in a very half-hearted way. And in the process the most important thing - the beer - has been forgotten.
9 Apr 2009 17:42