The Royal Oak, Stockwell, SW9

As noted below, this had re-opened but my question is whether it has really re-opened? I found it a pretty sad venue on my visit. Could hear the heavy metal music being boomed out of the venue even before I got out of my Uber. Patio area out the front but a pretty sad area on Clapham Rd. otherwise bar is on the left-hand side of the venue with seating arching round to the right-hand area with a pool table. A DJ area between the two halves and otherwise a totally sterile interior that it is had to positively describe. No cask, beers on tap were Guinness, Brixton Coldharbour lager and Reliance Pale Ale, cruz, Inch’s Moretti, fosters and Amstel. Fruit machines, TV’s showing Sky Sports, flags from recent Euro’s so this place did its best to be jazzy but it had the appeal of a bottle of Prosecco opened a month ago, cheap to start with then and totally flat now. My Guinness was by a country mile the best and most enjoyable, OK Pink Floyd and Comfortably Numb on soundtrack notched this place up considerably so I hover between 4 and 5 but settle on the former.

This gives the impression that it’s a 1930s’ pub but is an estate-style boozer dating from 1963, once a Charrington’s house, with a history documented in almost Pepys-like detail below. This is quite a lump of a pub, set back behind a very substantial and characterless partly covered patio. The interior is equally characterless, with a modern boarded floor, natural wood slats to the bar back and front, white paint, no décor, modern mushroom coloured vinyl upholstered chairs with equally modern tables, disco lighting (off), illumination otherwise coming from filament bulbs emanating from sconces fashioned from stopcocks. There were just five other customers, none watching the football, all outside on the patio. There’s no cask, just a Eurofizz lineup including the likes of Moretti, then pseudo cask taking the form of Brixton Reliance at a painful £3.50 a half, served by a charming young barman. With no food, no indoor customers, no ambience and seemingly not even any Wi-Fi, this place is a bit sad, with an outdoor A-board advertising for staff applications; I think getting the customers in should really take priority.