Flight Club, Cardiff

David Walton left this review about Flight Club

Visited 06/08/24

First time at their Cardiff venue on the insanely busy bar strip that is St Mary Street. This branch is quite deceptive as it appears quite small on the ground floor. Up a long well-lit wooden staircase there are similar layout first and second floors each with own bar plus a very large partially covered roof terrace also with its own bar. The walls throughout, where not housing dartboards, display a rather large collection of china plates and generally mahogany barometers, as if you were visiting rather eccentric elderly relatives who had a rather narrow collecting habit. The right-angled bar counters are on the left-hand wall in similar position on each floor and the one on the ground floor just past the inevitable check-in desk at this sort of activity venue. The ground floor, where I largely parked myself for 30 or so mins here, had tall cafe style wooden stools in the front area with a couple of copper topped tables and high stools in the middle part. There are only four dart boards at the back of the ground floor, two on each side of the room and another behind a feature wall with an actual merry go round house embedded in it. The darts action was pretty low octane during my visit - hardly Ally Pally levels of raucousness. The fairground feel throughout is made somewhat annoying by flickering large light displays that provide the main illumination in the venue.

Another bland keg offering of Amstel, Heineken, Moretti, with Guinness, Orchard Thieves cider, Brixton Reliance Pale Ale and Neck Oil. Sadly, the offering is the same on all the bars, I thought I would have got a reward for trekking all the way up to the roof for a gander.

The venue was surprisingly busy on my late afternoon visit, more so given there were no obvious work groups and largely what seemed like small groups of holidaymakers. Actually, most were treating as just a bar, but that seemed strange when there are a number of OK bars around here without the distraction of this place. This is a big venue in central Cardiff, and they must pull in the crowds to make this place viable.

On 19^th August 2024 - rating: 4
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