Bar Fringe, Manchester

I visited Bar Fringe tonight,having spent many a pleasant afternoon and evening in there a few years ago. Unfortunately, tonight was very much the opposite. My mistake was to sit on a table. I didn't tread on or damage the table but the woman behind the bar started to make a massive issue of this. At first she started to treat this as a joke but then became quite aggressive in her approach, refusing to allow me into the toilet on my own and haranguing my wife and friends. Even after profuse apologies, this landlady continued to behave in a threatening manner, loitering in a corner and gesturing at me and mentioning how her husband was upstairs. She then began to abuse my friend, accusing him of being 'a Southerner'. When he informed her that he was actually from Inverness, she said that he was gay and should get his hair cut! She then also informed us that the previoulsy stated closing time of 12:00am had now been changed to 11:00pm because she was 'bored'. Upon asking this woman to please leave us alone, she became quite intimidating so we retreated out the back door and sat in the beer garden. She then locked us out there! Some of us left but then she re-opened the door and presented two of my friends with a bottle of cheap rose wine by way of an apology!

Ironically, the pub itself seemed decent enough, although quite dirty. It reminded me of Subway, underneath Grand Central and would probably appeal to crusties and a certian type of student. However, the owner was downright rude and offensive, threatening, unpleasant, aggressive, bullying, homophobic and downright horrible; probably the worst pub owner that I have ever encountered. Beware!!

19 May 2010 02:52