Beefeater Malta Inn, Maidstone

Official site of Beefeater Malta Inn - www.beefeater.co.uk

Official site of Beefeater Malta Inn - www.beefeater.co.uk

Once a pleasant, if rather shabby, riverside pub adjacent to Allington Lock, and previously a Whitbread pub popular with walkers and boaters, this site has been changed somewhat since I last visited over 20 years ago. The previous building, which in its turn was on the site of an even earlier ale house, and the old house next door have been demolished and replaced by a hideous monstrosity of a complex which has added a Premier Inn and a carpark (fee charged) to the site along with the soulless, naff faux-Tudor Hell-portal which stands there now. Not so much chocolate-box, more Haribo-packet. It's a Beefeater, and one of the worse it's ever been my misfortune to enter, even compensating for the nauseotalgia-bias. There is a garden bar area and plenty of seats by the lock, though many of the users required more than their fair share of seat-space. The inside has the same depressing decor as others in the chain, made worse by the COVID-inspired one-way system. The staff were functional, clearly busy coping with the chavs to which Nick, below, refers. Screaming bloated morons of all 33 genders with toddlers took up most of the tables, while the queue for the bar was over 20 minutes long, partly due to social distancing (nothing to do with COVID - I just don't want to get too close to these people), partly due to the inefficient bar staff. No real ale, so it was all a bit pointless anyway. A good riverside spot ruined by ugly re-development and anti-social noise from the hard-of-thinking.

Large restaurant that sells drinks. Chav magnet.