The Queens Arms, Walthamstow, E17

Tris C left this review about The Queens Arms

This is a mid-19th century pub, situated in the trendy epicentre of Walthamstow ‘Village’ that is Orford Road; you know an area has arrived when it acquires a branch of Gail’s. There’s certainly food here and when I first started visiting friends in the ‘stow back in the late ‘90s, if you went to a pub and asked for burrata with tomato granita & pesto, you’d have got punched in the face.
The place has been heftily made over, with a scruffy and notably undulating bare boarded floor, plain white walls with black reveals; the only item of décor was the plethora of pump clips fixed to an upper wall and above the bar. The rear – which may be a dining area – features bare brick and eclectic prints. Furniture includes dark blue studded peripheral banquettes, then conventional round tables and upholstered stools, all to Pink Floyd’s Money at quite some volume; customers were young professional types, many quite shrill.
Despite the promises alluded to by the pump clips, at the time of my Saturday visit at just gone 10.00pm, there was an unused pump then just Pillars Cold Porter and Proper Job, £2.60 a half, served by an old-school landlady and in good shape.
This place isn’t bad but it’s a little stark, underperforms on the ale front and with the massed ranks of highchairs, offers the kind of child-based entertainment you thankfully won’t find at the neighbouring Nags Head.

On 15^th October 2024 - rating: 5
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