Kings Arms, Llandudno

Located a fair way along Mostyn Street, few tourists seem to find this pub. It seemed to be mostly locals who mostly seemed to be individuals. They had spread themselves out quite well, leaving very little room for anybody else. There is quite a bit of seating near the front of the pub, with the passageway narrowing past the bar and leading to another area of seating off to the right before a corridor takes you to the toilets. There is also some outdoor seating on the pavement at the front. Two real ales on the bar are Facer's Abbey Blonde & Sharp's Doom Bar. My Abbey Blonde was nice and service was also friendly and efficient.

On Mostyn Street, slightly away from the main visitor orientated part of town, is The Kings Arms, a Grade 2 listed building, featuring an attractive tiled frontage and curved frosted glass windows. High up on the upper mock Tudor part of the building, we see the date 1898. As we go in, we see a fine mosaic floor entrance. The old wooden bar is on the left hand side and features some attractive old coloured glass inserts in the bar gantry. Furniture is mainly normal tables and chairs with a long padded banquette running alongside the front wall under the window. Old black and white photos of Llandudno adorn the walls. A slightly raised area towards the rear is apparently used by diners at lunch time, but in reality, based on my visit, is just an integral part of the normal pub seating. It’s got that proper, old fashioned unpretentious local boozer feel to it, looking somewhat tired and worn in places. Two real ales were on – Doom Bar and Courage Best. Upon ordering a pint of the former, I got that quizzical discouraging giveaway look from the barmaid that speaks volumes – “Blimey, I don’t think anyone’s ordered this before”. Surprisingly, it was pretty reasonable (by Doom Bar standards), although somewhat overpriced at £ 3.50p. This is clearly and most definitely a pub that serves real ale, as opposed to a real ale pub, if you get my drift BT Sports are prominently advertised and with regular Disco / Karaoke evenings, it’s clearly one geared up more for the locals than the visitors to this seaside resort. On my visit, a somewhat raucous and lively atmosphere prevailed. Although it was only early evening, a good number of the customers were already clearly getting rather boisterous and, although I didn’t feel uncomfortable, this fact, coupled with the discouragingly over loud “background” music, persuaded me to retreat to one of the outside tables on the pavement at the front. Here, unfortunately, on my visit, a rather unkempt, smelly and drunken old sod, who I had earlier seen weeing in a shop doorway a few doors down, decided to come over and, although he was barely coherent and could, by now, hardly stand up, proceeded to challenge all and sundry, but no-one in particular, to a fight. Thankfully, there were no takers – it wouldn’t have exactly been a long drawn out fight going the full distance – and, although it was more comedic than threatening, it did persuade me to finish my pint of Doom Bar quicker than originally intended. (In fairness to the pub, I ought to stress that, there was nothing that indicated that he had previously been a customer in the pub) I normally like good honest unpretentious boozers of this ilk, but, taking the experience as a whole, I’ll probably give this one a miss next time – and you might want to as well.