Chester fast track tickets

[Cancello]

Samuel Smiths good ale and great value for money though I did notice that the one close to the course had begun pre covid to put signs up in the window ” No racegoers please as we presently have a staff shortage” – maybe just code for no suited scallys. And of course probably every forum member will have been to the anointed Kings Arms on a York race day.

[Drone]

Smith’s was hit very hard by lockdown and has closed a lot of its pubs.

The reason so many Smith’s pubs are currently closed has little to do with the lockdowns but lot to do with Humphrey Smith, the current owner. Not the best employer would be an overly polite description of the man. His pub managers (all pubs are managed, none tenanted) come and go, sacked or resigned

Replacements are becoming increasingly hard to find: the Kings Arms in York remains open but – to name but three – The Trafalgar Bay, York Arms and most recently The Brigadier Gerard are closed with adverts in the windows seeking new managers

Humphrey and the rest of the Smiths don’t really care as they view their pub estate as essentially a feudal fiefdom and being phenomenally wealthy, owning a lot of property in central London amongst other sources of revenue, do not rely on their pubs as the primary and core source of income

Architecturally I like their pubs: clean, smartly decorated and well upholstered. But the booze being so cheap does tend to attract the types even Wetherspoons would frown at, and the lines:

For here’s a place to sit and soak
In sanit’ry conditions

from Betjeman’s poem ‘The Village Inn’ sums up the overall atmosphere encountered. Wonder what Clivexxxx makes of them

Not keen on the Old Brewery Bitter but do like the 2.8% ABV Dark Mild, which last time I sank a pint cost around £1.40. In The Burns Hotel, formerly The Hansom Cab in York city centre. All human life is there, well some of it anyway

[Cork All Star]

Mr Smith also insists on a mobile phone ban and dismisses any manager who does not enforce it.

The brewery got into trouble a few years ago when it asked two men who were obviously a couple to leave one of its pubs. This was in Soho – a part of London where such sights are not exactly unusual.

The brewery owns a lot of pubs in London. The Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese off Fleet Street being the most famous and the Citie of York on High Holborn being the most spectacular. I was very fond of the Dover Castle but alas it is now closed.

I am not a fan of the Old Brewery Bitter either. It is OK but it would not be my first choice. Their stout is quite good, as is the bottled Nut Brown Ale.

[gamble]

‘The Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese off Fleet Street being the most famous.’

Strangely enough I have visited Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese twice (not to be confused with The Ye olde Cheshire Cheese). The last time I was there, a good thirty years ago, I suffered an uncontrollable laughing fit for all of ten minutes,and that was without a camera.

[Author]

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