The Bread & Roses, Clapham, SW4

L-shaped room with the bar facing you as you walk in. Weak real ales on offer. Stage to the right. The long room to the left opens out onto a beer garden. Nothing special. Opens at 4pm.

The interior consists of a large L shaped interior, with the bar facing you as you enter and a decent size stage area on the right. The seating consisted of brown smooth finished banquette seating along the left hand side. Walls were in white with a large collection of black and white photos of various musicians past and present. Three handpumps on the bar, with two in use, Sambrooks Wandle and London Pride. Service was slow from the two bar staff, even though the pub was quiet on our early Friday eve visit, so you wouldn't have a hope of being served when live music was playing and the place gets busy.

There was just the one real ale when I dropped in here on Wednesday afternoon – London Pride at £1.50 a half (£3 a pint?), plus another pump with a Doom Bar clip reversed. Food doesn’t seem to feature here (I didn't see any menus), although music most certainly does. There’s a large stage on the right, and just about everywhere there’s a photograph of musicians performing, including a montage of hundreds of photographs on the bar counter facing. That’s fair enough, but I could have done without the raucus pop music being played, but that’s just my opinion, as I suppose if you go to a music pub you can’t really expect a quiet drink. There’s a beer garden at the back, past a little conservatory area where the pool table’s located. Free wi-fi is advertised. Furnishings are cheap looking black plastic covered banquettes, standard but very basic wooden chairs, and round pedestal tables. It’s all very Spartan, which I suppose is what those you visit music pubs want, or have come to expect. As a music venue it no doubt ticks the boxes, but as just a pub I wasn't overly impressed. This is not a pub that I expect to visit again.

The bar is straight ahead on entering, then the pub extends around to the left through an area with a few sofas and then on to a dining area at the rear with light wood furniture and finally to a rear garden/decked area. A modern interior, rather bohemian with black and white pictures of various iconic musicians, political statements and soundbites etc. There are a set of record decks in the front corner so I imagine this is a music venue some evenings. There is a small terrace to the front with a few benches under jumberellas. The original pub brown tiling and etched windows can be seen from here. The unusual name I believe originates from a 1911 poem by James Oppenheim about a group of female factory workers striking in the USA. "Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses." Beers were Sharp's Doom Bar and Honey Spice Gold, plus Slater's Top Totty. An amusing aside, the gents toilets have the chorus to The Police's "Don't Stand so Close to me" painted on the walls above the urinals. An unusual but ok spot for a pint, my Top Totty was in good shape. Note the hours, 4:30 till 11 in the week and 12 to 11/12 weekends.

Randomness Guide to London - Bread And Roses entry

Randomness Guide to London - Bread And Roses entry

This pub was quite busy mid saturday afternoon there was a couple of tables outside but it was far to cold when i was here to drink outside,there were three real ales on i tried Sharps Doom Bar which was not bad the other beers were Slaters Top Totty and Hogs Back Advent Ale not a bad pub to have a few in.