ReviewI decided to give this food-led pub a try, having heard that they have an onsite microbrewery (Yorkshire Coast Brewery), and figured they must be pretty good when we walked past on Saturday evening and saw an A-board outside proclaiming that they were full for the evening. We booked a table for Sunday night and were surprised to find the same A-board outside when we arrived, and even more surprised to walk in and find a completely empty pub. The pub has a pretty good location, close to the town’s train station, and has been converted into a large, open-plan venue with a cosier side room to the front left. You enter through a pleasant front porch into the large main bar area. The servery runs down the left-hand wall and has a wooden slat counter front and modern gantry supported by some nicely worked wooden pillars. Bench and chair seating can be found along the opposite side of the room, under a bare brick wall with a large ‘Smokehouse’ slogan painted across it. The rear part of the room was signposted as the ‘Restaurant’ and offered plenty of additional tables and chairs ideal for diners. Despite being the only customers, we were shown to a table in the side room to the front of the pub, which has pews around three sides and a tatty brick fireplace at the far end. The walls are half-panelled with plain painted uppers in neutral shades, decorated with a variety of old photos including two excellent 1948 aerial photos of Bridlington. A glass section of the floor allows you to look down into the basement, where the brewing equipment is clearly visible, and a stack of old casks in one corner of the room also alludes to the on-site operation. Brewery mirrors, old advertisements and some high shelves lined with bottles and books rounded out the décor in this space which was far more characterful and pub-like than the main bar area. Some old pop tunes played quietly in the background and I think I saw maybe two or three other customers come and go in the time we were here.
I spotted three handpulls on the bar, two of which were unclipped whilst the third was pouring the in-house Yorkshire Coast Bitter. I took a pint of this and found it a fairly run of the mill bitter which was probably past its best. We’d also decided to eat here, having found a few of the better restaurants around town to be closed on a Sunday, and whilst the food was pretty good, the service was a bit hurried and as soon as we had we finished our mains, the bill arrived, with no discussion about desserts or another drink.
This seemed like a pretty nice pub, especially if you could bag a spot in the cosier side room, but we definitely didn’t enjoy the experience as we were made to feel like a bit of an inconvenience. There was enough here to suggest a visit at peak times could result in a decent experience but being rushed out of the pub at 19:45 on a mid-summer Sunday evening wouldn’t be something I’d hurry to recommend.
