Blakes, Dover

Visited yesterday, In the past I’ve encountered a very conceited attitude from the bar staff and the locals. There was none of that on this visit: in fact the bar staff were very helpful. I've put the rating up to 7/10. Had I visited for the first time yesterday it would have got 9/10, but I'm afraid the history counts against it.

Two years ago I visited Blakes of Dover and wasn’t impressed. I would so dearly love to have this place in my top ten list of pubs. It has everything I rate in a pub. It’s off the beaten track, but easily accessible on public transport. It’s downstairs in an obscure basement. It has decent ale from the best breweries – and some of the ale is poured from the barrel. It even has pickled eggs. However it also has bar staff who know how marvellous their pub is. And rather than clientele or regulars, it has an “in-crowd” who make a point of staring at the newcomer. On my last visit I rather slated the place in my last review, and today’s visit gave me no reason to change my opinion of the place. It gets 4/10, which for me is "could do better"

It's a wonderful place to drink – the only drawback is that the people behind the bar know it. Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive, but I wasn't impressed by the condescending attitude of the staff. What might possibly have rated a score of 9/10 was lucky to score 6/10.