Winchmore, Winchmore Hill, N21

Facebook page of Winchmore - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Winchmore - www.facebook.com

Official site of Winchmore - www.winchmore.me

Official site of Winchmore - www.winchmore.me

This decent sized road side pub is currently closed and boarded up.. In the 70's and 80's it was known as The Chase Side Tavern and got quite a reputation as a youngsters pub which inevitably led to rowdy behaviour on Friday and Saturday evenings.. But guiltily I have to confess that period overlapped my formative drinking years and good fun some of those rowdy Saturday nights were. Unfortunately its location in quite a residential area led to complaints and it was taken over and done up and reopened as the Winchmore Hill Arms. However it then continued as an average pub with no unique selling points and it always struggled to find a sizeable audience, especially being stuck out of the way in the middle of the pubs in Southgate and Winchmore Hill Green. And so a few years ago (2009 I believe) it was sold and taken over by some local entrepreneurs who tried to make it an upmarket swish bar / restaurant and re-branded it as The Willow. It was aimed at the flash young things of North London who want to be seen whilst they spend lots of money and would ignore the crap service levels and not very good food. And in the current financial climate there isn’t enough of them to keep this incarnation going. Hence the current metal shutters..

This place has reopened and has changed its name from 'The Winchmore Arms' to ‘Willow' and it has been turned into a chilled Spanish restaurant/gastro pub complete with live Spanish guitar that was playing on my visit. There is a sign up outside stating that a restaurant will be opening upstairs shortly which was surprising as it wasn't very busy whilst I was there. The three hand pumps at the end of the bar have been cleaned and polished to become a feature, but alas I fear that they will never dispense anything resembling a real ale ever again. The draught pumps for Fosters, Kronenburg, Bulmers and Guinness are hidden low behind the bar so that you have to ask what is on offer as I think that table service is the order of the day. The couple of business men along from me that were talking shop and tucking into the vast array of spirits behind the bar alongside the barman/waiter shaking up some cocktails had me thinking that I was in a hotel bar. I'd take the wife here for a meal as it is very nice, but it would not even enter my brain to go here just for a Guinness again.