The Salutation, Doncaster

The Salutation is a high street boozer with a flagstone floor and banquette seating to the left and high tables to the right that are faced by the serving counter up the right-hand wall. In the right rear is a tartan carpeted seating area with more banquettes and a fireplace. Televisions are located throughout for the advertised Sky and TNT Sports, muted horse racing was airing while background music played during a recent midweek late afternoon visit. Standard and premium keg were available and six of the seven hand pumps were in use drawing Tribute, Black Sheep, Landlord, Pheasantry Brewery’s Lincoln Tank Ale, Welbeck Abbey’s Lost Boys and Little Critter’s Blonde Bear. I went for the £4 a pint Lincoln which wasn’t to my taste so I wouldn’t have again. Unfortunately an older gentleman had stayed in the pub a bit too long and had fallen asleep and wet himself at a table opposite the counter. An ambulance crew turned up to take him away and I was amazed at how the staff just cleared the area and got on with their work without a single complaint. They were very polite and professional, but then one could say that maybe old men should be allowed to get to a point where they’re falling asleep in the pub. This place is worth popping into if passing through into town from the east, but I probably wouldn’t walk out of town to revisit.

Interesting-looking Greene King pub on the eastern edge of the town centre, that is less appealing than one might expect inside the remodelled and refurbished multi-space interior. Full of football ephemera for the delayed Euro 2021 competition, with a number of large TV screens showing a live match. However, nobody seemed to interested in that, but it was still doing very good business early on a Saturday evening, and there were plenty of staff taking table-service orders and managing the other coronavirus restrictions. With six of the seven handpumps in use, I just found Old Speckled Hen from the owning brewery, plus Black Sheep, Landlord, Abbeydale Moonshine, Stancill's Stainless (£3.80) and Rosie's Pig cider.