The Hand & Racquet, Wimbledon, SW19

Modern styled greene king pub. 6 real ales and food served. A short walk from Wimbledon tube station.

This is now a Greene King pub, and on my visit yesterday it had on OSH, GKIPA, Abbot, Fireside and Olde Trip (£3 per pint). They do food all day – from 11.00 AM until 9.00 PM – and it doesn’t seem too expensive. Sandwiches are around the £3 - £5 mark, and main courses around £4.50 to £8. The “British beef and Ruddles ale pie, with chive mash, seasonal vegetables and a jug of real pie gravy” is £7.45. As far as I can recall this pub gets a makeover every few years, and changes its name as well. It is a “shop conversion” pub, and now it’s very open inside with lots of empty space in the middle of the room. There are plenty of tall stools with tall tables, or at ledges affixed to pillars, some sofas, and a few normal tables and chairs. On the minus side I saw a couple of fruit machines and a games machine, and it’s bare-boarded of course, and on the plus side there were a couple of nice bits of wooden furniture on the right as you enter. All in all this is a very standard GK pub. It was clean and well maintained, the menu looked OK, although I didn’t eat here, but I found it very much the stereotype of the madeover plush pub. As I’m not a fan of GK ales, I doubt whether I’ll return.

Once a Hogshead with a good range, including a number served on gravity from a stillage behind the bar. Popped in recently and noted that the once decent range had diminished to just two, something by GK, IPA I think and Titanic Lifeboat which to be fair was ok. Busy and (very) noisy but not the pub it once was I'm afraid to say.