Mountbatten, West Southampton

I'd tried several times previously to review the Mountbatten, but each time I'm in the area and come here it's closed. But success today. It's a modern pub built as part of the local shopping area on the edge of a residential part of West Southampton, and owned and run by Star Pubs (Heineken). Place is a little tatty, though not dirty. No food available on my visit, a Saturday. No cask, but four or five kegs (the barmaid says the keg pumps are new and messed up so some of what is showing is not available).  Barmaid is friendly and lively, and the guys at the bar are chatty. The place may be mostly empty but the people inside create a warm and welcoming working class vibe. Music is a tad loud, but it all feels appropriate. This is very much a locals pub, and it feels like a place on its last legs, but pubs like this are the corner stone of local communities. It's not a place I'm likely to recommend or even return to now I've at last reviewed it, but I recognise its value, and it will be missed when it eventually drags down to its inevitable close. It needs someone with good business sense, enthusiasm and deep pockets to sort out. I hope it gets someone, but somehow I doubt it as the general condition of the pub, as indicated on a Star Pubs report, is poor.

It was built in the 1980s at the same time as the shopping area. In 2016 when it was owned by Punch Taverns, it closed suddenly. But, obviously, later reopened. 

Ambiance

Date: June 2019   Score: 4


Lordshill District Centre
SO16 8HY

Open:   Noon to 11pm
Meals:  Sunday Noon to 4pm (perhaps?)


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The View Bar, Upper Shirley

A sort of 1930s Art Deco garden shed behind the bowling green of Southampton's sports centre. It is rather sparse and austere, and has the feel of a working man's social club. In my visit there are two groups of tables pushed together suitable for two groups of twelve to sit and eat, which are reserved. The rest of the room has low tables, most of which are grouped in the centre for a party of cyclists. Nobody is eating. There's a nice hubbub of conversation, but also loud music from one corner and sports tv from the opposite corner. Children are allowed.

One cask, Doom Bar, served in indifferent condition. Some biscuits and cake are on sale on the counter.

Ambience - or lack of.....

It's an OK place. If you're here for the sports centre then this will do, and I should imagine it's OK for locals as well, but it does feel more bar than pub, and is not really a place worth seeking out.

Ariel shot from a drone

Date: June 2019   Score: 4 


Sports Centre 

Thornhill Road
Southampton
SO16 7AY

Open: 11am to 10.30pm (8pm Sundays)
Meals: 10am to 3pm, and 5am to 9pm

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Hop Inn, Bitterne

Visited in December 2014 when the place didn't do food, and left a review on BeerInTheEvening:

Corner location 1930s red brick pub. Nice homely feel to this locals' pub. Place is smaller inside than appears from outside. Decor is tired and rather like your nan's house. It has its charm, but will appeal mainly to the elderly - who are the only other customers on my visit. No food - just crisps, apart from Wednesday evening, when there is a curry night. Three casks - Doom, HSB, and a Bowman. Free wifi - password is behind the bar. I quite like the place, but its charms are limited, and - other than being an outlet for the excellent Bowman beers, I wouldn't recommend you to go out of your way to come here; but if you're in the area, then yes, drop in. Dec 2014

Built by Brickwoods Ltd, a now closed Portsmouth brewery, in the 1930s. The pub passed to Whitbread & Co when Whitbread bought out Brickwoods in 1971. It is currently owned by Enterprise Inns (now called the Ei Group), who bought this and over 1,800 other pubs from Whitbread in 2002. 

The rather quaint chintzy interior

Date: Dec2014   Score: 6

The ambience 

The rather nice beers

Visited with Myles for one of our regular pub lunch meet ups. It's a tidy place. Serves food and decent beers. Clean and well kept. Myles liked it rather more than I did. I liked it also, but was held back by the rather chintzy look of the place which makes it feel more like an old people's home than a pub.

Date: June 2019   Score: 6


As of April 2021, open for drinks only in limited outside seating - beer garden accessible via public bar. Limited hours: Tuesday to Thursday: 3pm to 9pm; Friday to Sunday: 1pm to 8pm (maybe later). 

Date: April 2021 


 

 

 

Popped in for lunch, but we're the only customers, and there's no cooked food. The very helpful and pleasant lad behind the bar does us a couple of sandwiches/baguettes. 

 

Local beers

Each time I've been in the Hop Inn has served local beers. On this visit it was Stoke by the Eastleigh brewery, Steam Town. The place does have the feel of an old people's home, but we felt comfortable. Sad that with no other customers and no hot food on offer it's likely this is a place we'll be giving a skip in future. 


Date: July 2022   Score: 5  


Beers drunk: Ramsbury Milk Stout;  Alfred's Saxon Bronze;   Steam Town Stoke; 


199 Woodmill Lane
Southampton
SO18 2PH

Open: Noon to 11pm
Food: Noon to 2.30, 5 - 9 Tue - Fri


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***

Enterprise Inns (Ei Group)

Scholars Arms, Southampton Central

Greene King pub in the upper part of Southampton's city centre.  As with most other pubs in this area (notable exception being Belgium & Blues), this is a bland utilitarian drinking barn. Family friendly, though not much to offer the children by way of entertainment. On weekends it appears to offer sports TV continuously on five screens. It does standard Greene King pub food - mostly meat and chips. And beer choice was limited to the three main GK brands - Speckled Hen, Abbot and IPA.

Beer selection (five pumps, but only three beers)

Ambiance

Very popular. We came in after the Southampton Marathon Fun Run. Tables were still dirty when we entered, but were quickly cleared away and cleaned.

It's a functional place of little character or interest.


Date: May 2019    Score: 5



Open: 11am - 11pm  (Meals 12-9pm)

Family friendly

166 Above Bar Street
Southampton
SO14 7DU



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Greene King pubs in Southampton

O'Neill's (formally The Spitfire), Southampton Central

O'Neill's is a Mitchells & Butlers pub in the Above Bar area of Southampton called the Cultural Quarter. It used to be called The Spitfire. It's the same pub run by the same people serving the same food and drinks, but now under a different name. 

Owned by Mitchells & Butlers, who operate it under the Sizzling Pubs brand, this is a potentially decent pub that serves food all day (largely meat and chips, but some limited veggie options can be found) and a small selection of common cask beers plus an occasional quest. Our family visit on a Saturday afternoon was unfortunate in that the sport tv was on and was very loud, and the card machine was broken so if we wanted to buy anything we needed to use cash. I was directed to go to the cash machine in the street. Given that the menu was not inviting, the beer selection was boring, and the tv noise was uncomfortable, I thought that being instructed to go outside was the right option. So we all went outside to Yates and ate there (though that turned out to be a less than pleasant experience in itself - so I'm still struggling to find a decent family pub in the city centre on a Saturday afternoon). 


Date: May 2019    Score: 5


In November 2019, a few months after our visit, M&B changed the branding from Sizzling Pubs to O'Neill's. I've only just noticed! 

Feb 2022   Score: N/A 

   

Walking from breakfast at The Rover to lunch at The Red Lion I stopped at O'Neill's for a refresher. A fairly standard selection of taps, with three handpumps. I fancied the cask cider, but that wasn't on, so I opted for the Tribute, but that wasn't on. The barman said Doom Bar was on, but it's not really my thing. I hadn't had a Peroni in years, so I opted for that. It was cold, fizzy, and harmless. 

  

The tap selection - though only two of the casks were actually available

The place is large, comfortable, family friendly, with low cost food offers (veggie sausage and mash with a pint of Guinness for under £8 - not bad), and several large TV screens showing sport. It's a relaxed, low key, friendly sort of place. A little anonymous, but then this is the main street in a busy town not a local on the fringes.   

 

The ambiance

On the whole, an acceptable place to stop for a drink and watch the world go by, or watch the sport, and perhaps have a little chat. Also cool for a low cost meal - though not yet tried the food so not sure what it is like. I assume the mash will be powdered. 


Date: July 2023    Score: 5 



130-132 Above Bar Street
Southampton
SO14 7DU

Open  7am to Midnight (alcohol from 9am)
Meals 7am to 10pm 



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Yates, Southampton Central

Large and popular modern pub on Southampton's main street. Yates is very similar to Wetherspoon in layout and in cheap meal deals and cask beers. Main differences are less choice of beers, large sports TVs, and piped music. There are also evening DJs and quiz nights.  The window seats are popular, so the tables are a bit close together, but there's plenty of room elsewhere.  The pub is popular during the day with young working class families, as well as older couple and friends; then during the evening it attracts students and hen parties.

Ambience

The beer selection is OK. There are seven hand pumps, with one of those for cider. On my visit two pumps were not available. I had the Fullers Swing Low, which was not entirely fresh.

Beer selection

All in all I found the place to be workable. Attractive meal deals, and cask ales with ample seating, and the music is kept low. If in town with the family this is an acceptable spot for lunch as the two nearest Spoons are both a little walk away.

Date: March 2019   Score: 5


Popped in on a Saturday afternoon with the family. We sat by the window. which offers a pleasant view of the park across the road, but is too near a speaker for the sports tv, which meant we had difficulty relaxing and conversation was a bit difficult. There may be other places in the pub where the tv is not so loud, but we found it rather off-putting. There was no cask ale available at all. All five of the casks were off. There was a cask fruity cider available. It is bad management to have no cask ales on. The pub was not so busy that one of the staff couldn't pop downstairs to change a barrel. The only rationales would be a) that there was no one in the pub trained to change the barrel (poor management) or b) the pub had completely run out of cask beer (poor management - that would be like a chip shop running completely out of chips - you need to keep on top of stock management). When our food was brought to us we were given five forks (for the three of us) but no knives. A small error, but it took time to fix as the cutlery is kept in the kitchen and needs to be requested and waited for.  All this was compounded by the fact that the table we chose to sit at is awkwardly placed such that it is difficult to get in and out. Not a good day for Yates, and overall not a pleasant visit.

Date: May 2019   Score: 3

113-117 Above Bar Street
Southampton
SO14 7FH

Open 9am - 11pm (later on weekends) 

Food 9am - 9pm 

Family friendly 

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Stonegate / Enterprise

The Linden Tree, Bursledon

I thought I had reviewed the Linden Tree on my blog, and came here to record a second visit, but I seem to have visited the place before I started doing my blog, so my review went on BITE:

I'm new to the Southampton area, and still exploring the pubs. I'm finding that Wadworths pubs are pretty good. They tend to be well run, and with lots of character. The Wadworth's beers are to my taste, and sometimes there'll be guest ales. This is fairly typical. A very pleasant characterful place. Real fire in the corner, cats and a dog in the bar. Lots of wood. Everything clean and in good shape. No guest ales on my visit, but apparently they do sometimes put one on. However, there were four casks of Wadworths ales available, which is plenty enough. 

I like the place, and could see myself popping in here for Sunday lunch, or lunch before doing shopping in the nearby Tesco. But they no longer do food - not even rolls. The pub is apparently busy enough that they don't need the food trade, and they don't find it profitable enough. That's a real shame for me as it's too far to be my local, and without food on offer or a frequently changing guest ale or a nice location, or some other special draw, other than being pleasant, I doubt I'll be visiting again. 

This is, essentially, a pleasant locals pub. If you're close by, it's worth a visit, but if you're more than a mile away, then the Cottage Inn in Butlocks Heath is also a Wadworths, and has a lot of character, and does food. Or go to Hamble-le-Rice, which is a pleasant village with a good selection of pubs to choose from. 

SilkTork - 25 Mar 2015 03:43

Since I wrote the above, the Cottage has stopped doing food. And I have discovered the Fox and Hounds  just down the road. And I've just noticed that I haven't reviewed the Cottage, even though I've been there several times.   [Note, I have now reviewed The Cottage, and they are back doing food. Good pub. Nov 2021] 

Anyway, The Linden Tree is the same as it was on my previous visit. Four Wadworth cask beers, a cat and a dog, roaring fire, laid back atmosphere, mildly charming,  quirky nik naks, friendly locals, and no food other than snacks. The place is clean and well run, and makes for a pleasant local, but it's not really a pub you'd go out of your way to visit. Indeed, I would say if you are on the road leading to The Linden Tree, you'd be doing yourself a favour if you kept on driving a little bit until you came to the Fox and Hounds - that is a pub worth seeking out.

Date: Dec 2018    Score: 5 



11-11 Mon-Sat; 12-11 Sun

School Road
Lowford
Bursledon
SO31 8BU


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Wadworth Pubs in Southampton