The Woodman, Wimbledon Park, SW19

There were four handpumps on the bar – two had London Pride clips reversed, with the other two dispensing GKIPA (£2.95 a pint) and Courage Best (£2.50 a pint). The front area of the bar by the windows, looking out to the main road, has a mix of tall stools/tables, banquette seating plus some normal tables and chairs. There’s an evidently well-used dartboard on the right of this area. At the back to the left of the bar counter is another fairly large room furnished with normal tables and chairs and as all the tables back here had menus on them (whereas those in the front bar didn’t) I am assuming that this is the main area intended for diners. There was also a buffet cart hanging around back here (like the sort that Harvesters use for their salad bar), but unused during my Monday mid-afternoon visit. The menus looked typical of the style used by Punch Taverns. The usual offers were available – 2 meals for £8; steak night on Tuesday (£5.49 including a drink, with the diet Pepsi being the best bet); curry night on Thursday, also at £5.49. This looks like a typical cheap food led pub. The beers are certainly not worth writing home about, especially if you go for the steak night deal where the choice is either Foster’s or John Smith’s. This looks like a hundred other Punch pubs I’ve been in – characterless but functional, with nothing much to recommend them. But they serve a purpose by providing reasonably cheap pub food, so they are a lot better than having no pub at all.