The Toll Bar, Nottingham

The Gatehouse is a large one roomed pub underneath some apartment’s right next to the very busy Maid Marion way roundabout. There has been some press recently about the possibility of a Tapas restaurant taking over here and opening their second site after their first shop in Beeston and to be honest I don’t actually think this would be a bad thing. Judging by my last visit it looks all but a certainty because things were really drained and it looked on its last legs and like it was sitting around and waiting to be put out of its misery. The pub is one open plan square with wooden floors throughout and tables and chairs scatted around with almost no distinguishing features whatsoever. There is a pool table on the right hand side and a few tv screens. Rightfully this place was stone cold dead on my Thursday evening visit. Predictably there is no real ale served whatsoever and the few had pulls on the bar have not dispensed any for a few years now. I opted for Guinness at a rather overpriced £3.65 for the type of establishment while my friend had john Smiths at £2.80 or at least that was the plan until the Guinness ran out 1/3 of the pour down and they “didn’t have” anymore which is a joke. This is all a shame as it is in a prime location and could attract a lot of the office workers around these parts if a bit more effort was put in. Sadly in its current state I think a trendy tapas bar selling a few foreign beers/craft would be a dam sight b better than this sad dreary old place and would certainly attract a few more people. Being at the bitten of a hill contain at least half a dozen award winning real ale pubs surely does not help nut you would have thought it would have made them up their game a bit and try to get in on the action, Now I think it’s time to take the donkey behind the barn and put it out of its misery. Can’t see it lasting until Christmas.

When i first went in this pub back in 1981 it was called the Toll Bar and it was an Home Ales tied house. The pub changed its name to the Gatehouse quite a few years back. Once inside there is a single room with the bar on the right side,the seating is a mix of normal tables and chairs and some tall ones,there is now a pool table to the front right and a darts board to the left,the rear area is now devoid of any seating and is probably used for dancing when the disco or karaoke is in use. When me and the wife visited this pub quite often there were five pumps on the bar this has now been reduced to three with one unclipped. On my recent visit i had a drink of Harvest Pale which was on top form,the other beer was GK Abbot. I really liked drinking in this pub as it seemed quite smart,but on my very recent visit the pub seems to have gone a bit down market in my opinion which is a shame. Pub first visited as the Toll Bar 1981 Recent visit 28/3/2015

The Gatehouse is a simple, single room pub/coffee house in a prominent location on Tollhouse Hill. The interior is fairly inoffensive with bare floorboards, neutral colour scheme and a mix of bench and standard chair seating around tables of varying sizes. There are some old black and white photos dotted around the place and the back walls are dominated by large blackboards detailing a decent sounding menu which includes fairly wide pizza and burger selections. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the interior, and I’m clutching at straws a bit here, is the ceiling which has an unusual hexagonal cut away pattern. There is a decent sized fenced off space on the pavement out the front but the view from here isn’t much to get excited about, so I stayed inside where a jazzy soundtrack was playing to a handful of mid afternoon customers. Four hand pumps offered Castle Rock Harvest Pale (twice), Sharp’s Doom Bar and Bass (£3.20). I gave the latter a try and thought it was a bit below par. The barmaid who served me was very friendly to all of her customers, some of whom were taking advantage of the unlimited free Wi-Fi available. Despite not really having much of a pub feel to it, I still thought this place had something going for it and probably fills a certain gap in the market. I’m not sure I’d return for the beer, but it seemed like a nice place to grab a bite to eat.