Bay Horse, York

This pub is situated in a large building resembling a manor house at the river end of Marygate. It looks very much like a hotel lounge to me, with big chunky wooden tables, and high backed chairs. It’s carpeted throughout, and the walls are predictably adorned with numerous prints of horses. There was some pop music being played, with sporadic pings and dongs from a games machine being played. The girl behind the bar was friendly enough, but somehow the place seemed to be lacking in atmosphere. She seemed to be a bit surprised to be asked to remove the sparkler, as the beer would obviously be flat as a result, but when she twigged that I was from somewhere down south, she accepted such an irrational request as being quite understandable. There were six ales on – I had the Copper Dragon, and I also noticed something called Lady Julia, which unfortunately I didn’t have time to sample. They also had Fuller’s Hock on, and speaking to the landlord I discovered that they were selling it for £2.30 a pint. When I said that I had recently paid £3.70 for a pint of the stuff in London, this confirmed their opinion of me as some sort of madman from London! Someone has obviously spent a lot of money on this place, but for me it doesn’t really work. I think they need to brand it as an upmarket pub/restaurant or as a basic pub. Bin the banal pop music, one-armed bandits, noisy games machine and get in some decent furniture and it could be a destination pub. With six decent ales on it certainly does have potential.