Golden Lion Inn, York

This is one of those pubs that it is really difficult to locate opening times for. With no website and no opening times on Facebook, I relied on the CAMRA website, which said it opened at midday on a Sunday. Google shows that it opens at 10am each day, but is clearly wrong. However, we arrived at lunchtime on Sunday to find it still closed. It soon became apparent that the guy sitting on tables overlooking the village's pretty street was the landlord. He said that it was to open at 4pm, which gave us a few hours to kill. We duly returned after 4pm to find the landlord (still) sat at the front of the pub. He didn't move and instead sent somebody else (possibly his son, possibly an employee) inside to serve us. The interior is dark and looks fairly comfortable. There are plenty of board games against one wall. Just 2 ales are served. These were Tetley's Cask & Robinson's Dizzy Blonde. If only pubs would advertise their latest opening times, our visit here would have been much more comfortable and much less rushed.

Formerly two rooms, probably originally two cottages, and now basically open plan, to the left is the village shop, which is dismantled for darts matches, with a traditional flag floored public bar and also home to the pool table. To the right is a carpeted lounge with proper pubby furnishing of bench seating as well as tables and chairs. Decorated in traditional village pub fashion with the brasses and pictures expected, the lounge has a big screen as well and a set of Guinness flying toucans. Four handpumps with Theakstons and as a guest Adnams, at the weekend the beer count increases which shows the attention to detail that makes the quality excellent in the pub.