Bar Solo, Carlisle

There were lots of young men sat on the café tables on the pavement across the front of Bar Solo during a recent Monday afternoon visit, but the small laminate floored single roomed bar was empty apart from the polite barman. The counter across the rear wall to the left supports premium keg alongside Neck Oil; half a Moretti came in at an eye watering £3.45. The right-hand side of the counter is for making coffee and cocktails. The tables throughout all had games on them, from dominoes to buckaroo and table football. There was also a tiny little kid’s pool table, to be honest it felt like the barman’s dad had decided to empty all his old toys out of the loft. The background music was quite loud and a bit crap so maybe that’s why everyone else was outside. The ornate square ceiling was impressive enough for me to sneak a picture, but the only other thing of note were the tiny little toilet cubicles. I thought I was on an aircraft while taking a leak. This isn’t somewhere I plan to revisit.

Sophisticated (for Carlisle) bar, though the pointless mute TV undermined its credentials. Nicely done-out actually, plenty to look at with a boxed ceiling and some (presume original) tiling details by the window. Mainly spirits and a basic keg selection of which Theakston Best was my choice, with what looked like a sparkler put onto a keg font - I've seen it all now. Worth a nose for bits of the interior if you’ve finished your crawl early. 5.5