Engine Room, Sunderland

A good sized venue, which could have easily housed four Fire Engines. This place was absolutely packed when we were passing, so popped back later when all the customers had gone off to the nearby Theatre. The interior was very impressive with a lot of the fire stations original fixtures retained. Only two handpumps now compared to my fellow reviewers below, Mitchell and Butler Brew X1 and Allendale Pennine Pale.

Official site of Engine Room - pubculture.com

Official site of Engine Room - pubculture.com

Part of a complex of restaurants, galleries, performance spaces etc, the Engine Room is still obviously a old fire station retaining white tiled walls and some original woodwork. The central horseshoe counter has 8 pulls with a mix of local and national beers plus the usual keg catalogue. Service was spot on but the beer a bit tired. Partly a dining area so family friendly and furnished as such. A few fireman related bits and bobs as decor.

10 pumps at the bar, at the time of my visit offering 8 cask ales and 2 ciders. One of the ales was "coming soon" with none of the pumps blank. Doom Bar and Bombardier featured, but the others were more interesting and unusual including a couple by Anarchy. I had the Sublime Chaos, a 7% stout by Anarchy, at £1.90 for a half. I managed to hit a busy spell at the bar but service was polite and friendly after the initial wait. Seems to be a rather foody place but with a great selection of cask ale. There were also 12 keg taps but nothing jumped out as being exciting on these. This is the converted fire station and various original features have been retained in what is otherwise a rather modern looking bar. The words FIRE STATION are on the wall in the original red lettering, and there are coat hooks near the kitchen labelled with officers' names and ranks which presumably would have once held their firefighting uniform and helmets. I don't recall seeing a fireman's pole. The staff were working extremely hard, both behind the bar and going back and forth between tables and the kitchen. Worth a look and definitely better than I remember from my previous visit.