Bootlegger Vault, Richmond

Facebook page of Bootlegger Vault - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Bootlegger Vault - www.facebook.com

Official site of Bootlegger Vault - bootleggerbars.com

Official site of Bootlegger Vault - bootleggerbars.com

This is a nice basement bar in the centre of Richmond, operating as a restaurant and craft beer bar, with distinct areas for each. You enter via a staircase down into a bare boarded front room with whitewashed walls and ceiling which help brighten what would otherwise be a dark, gloomy space. Sofas to the front right offer some comfy seating in front of the fireplace on the end wall which has a mirror in a highly decorative frame above it. Moving into a notional second ‘room’, the servery appears immediately to the left, with a glazed tile bar counter split in two by a centrally positioned pillar. High table and stool seating has been squeezed into the small gaps created by a series of arches/pillars opposite the bar, which create a cavern-like feeling and make it quite a cosy spot to settle down in despite the uncomfortable furniture, although a few regular tables and chairs appear a little further into the room, although a board here suggests these are set aside for diners. The room extends into a much larger and more open plan lower level space to the rear, accessed by another small staircase and visible from the bar area. This space is filled with more tables, chairs and benches and the walls have been decorated with brewery mirrors, framed pump clips, beer advertisement boards and old black and white photos. As our visit was outside of peak dining hours, there was only one customer sat down here, but the bar area was lively, and I thought the place had a nice ambiance to it. There were three ales available on handpull when I arrived alongside two real ciders, although unfortunately the Cloudwater Pale Ale spluttered its last when I ordered a pint, so I was left to choose between Mad Squirrel Hopfest and Mister Squirrel, plumping eventually for the former at £4.50 a pint. It was a nice, well-kept pint and the barmaid was very friendly and helpful, offering my companions various tasters before they made their selections. Beer menus detailed the wider craft keg, bottle and can selections which covered a wide range of styles and strengths. I thought this was a nice atmospheric basement bar with a good deal of character, friendly service and some interesting, well-kept beer. It’s a bit of a shame that half of the pub is given over to diners, but it’s all well demarcated so there’s no real problem. This is a nice alternative to the traditional pubs that predominate in the centre of Richmond and well worth adding to a crawl of the area.

This place is unchanged from previous reviewers' visits. There are sofas in a small area on the right as you enter, then plenty of standard seating separated by some round-topped archways giving a sort of crypt-like or cloistered feel about the place. Masses of bric-a-brac and curiosities on the walls are there to pique one's interest. There are four handpumps on the tiny bar counter on the left - all were clipped during our weekday lunchtime visit, with Salopian Fault Line, 360 Single Hop, Kirkstall Dissolution IPA and South Downs Blackcurrant Cider all on. There were five of us in my group and between us we had all three real ales; all were in good shape and at an average price of £4.50 per pint. I noticed an advertisement for a "buy one get one free" happy hour after work on Monday - 5.0 PM to 6.0 PM as I recall, which seems a very good deal. As others have stated, there's a dedicated restaurant downstairs at the back with the "wait to be seated" guarding the top of the stairs. I didn't get to see a menu as we weren't eating there. What we all appreciated was the complimentary bowl of spicy peanuts plonked on our table. On a wall at the back is a board helpfully listing all the beers, including the so-called craft beers, that were on. I don't normally go for underground drinking holes out of choice, but we all really liked this place. It helped that some natural light got into the place from the skylights above the restaurant area at the back; the excellent beer and complimentary peanuts also helped. I would certainly visit this bar again.

This is a nice bar that I have been in loads of times and forgot to review.Basement bar so it suffers from lack of daylight but is always busy mostly with diners.Nice friendly staff and always something unusual on cask.Decent bottled beer list.Lack of outside space is a problem.