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I popped into the Eastbourne Cocktail Club on Saturday night when the area was very busy, but it was very quiet in here with about ten people. The service was friendly, but all the draught was off meaning I had to go for a 440 ml can of Stella which was an eye-watering £6. Whilst sat at one of the many free sticky tables around the exterior walls I realised that the décor has fallen into a state of disrepair. From what I witnessed, I don’t think the ECC is long for this world. Marked down from 7/10 to 2/10, and the extra point is for the service.

13th April 2016
The Greenhouse is a distant memory as the Eastbourne Cocktail Club (ECC) now resides at 10 Station Street. As an exile of the Big Smoke the ECC has been on my radar since reading that it has been designed to ‘bring the flavour of London to Eastbourne’. Having been a resident of Camden for many years I appreciated the attempt at recreating a NW1 bar. However, the grime, police sirens, moody bouncers, crazy bus drivers, unhinged youths and smell of Ganga were all lacking when I visited on Thursday evening last week.
Being a cocktail bar all manner of spirits are available for the mixologists to do their magic. These spirits line lit shelves that run along the length of the back bar that is decorated with framed front pages of Rolling Stone magazine. For those that think that fruit should be reserved for animals and athletes there is a range of keg products available. These included Heineken, Amstel and Caledonian Brewery’s Three Hop alongside Strongbow Cloudy Apple and Rekorderlig ciders. A chalkboard advertises burger and chips for £5 with the option of adding things such as cheese, bacon, pineapple and avocado for an extra £1 per item. Tapas were also advertised and other foods may be available.
To recreate the London look the owners have hung ‘Camden Town’ and ‘London Calling’ street signs. The bar on the right hand wall faces basic four seater tables that look like they were knocked up in the local woodwork college. Dumb and Dumber and Quadrophenia prints on a couple of the tables added to the ‘cool bar’ theme.
During my stay varying genres of music were playing from the 1960s to the 1980s. There are no televisual devices so live sport is not shown.
At the rear are a few steps up to what was once the backyard. This area has been turned into a small covered seating area, toilet and small kitchen. For some reason there is fake grass on the floor of the seating area and both of the urinals in the toilet are encased by canoes that stretch from the floor to the ceiling.
There is a second bar upstairs that I have never visited. There are plans to turn this area into REHAB which will be somewhere you ‘could imagine Amy Winehouse hanging out’. The ECC website stresses that this will be a bar and not a crack den.
Within minutes of me and the wife settling on one of the uncomfortable stools at the bar a couple of blokes started squaring up to each other. In the end they decided not to kick off, which was good because we would have left and missed out on a very good evening. I found the service to be friendly and thought the ECC to be a vast improvement on the Greenhouse that I last visited in August 2009. I would have no problem returning here for a few more jars.

As described by Blackthorn, below, we found a lively local full of families eating and drinking. The car park had limited space, but it was surprisingly easy to park on the road in front. The covered area in the garden was livelier than the interior despite the cold. Inside, it felt a bit bland, with limited seating space as most of the tables were taken up by couples with children. Ales on were Butcombe Original and Rare Breed, plus Sharp’s Atlantic. The Rare Breed wasn’t on top form and left a metallic after-taste. On keg were Guinness, Alpacalypse, Sharp‘s Offshore, Prahva, Madri, four from Thatcher’s and Blue Moon. The cask ales were hugely over-priced. The staff weren’t particularly welcoming, and it all felt a bit perfunctory. I’m not sure I’d make a special effort to come here but it’s OK if passing and could be linked in with a trip to The Ship just down the road.

Recent opening under a Wetherspoons franchise model that they are rolling out. Refurb has seen a soft refurb but carpets still as per beefeater. Given separation of right side being more food oriented when beefeater, now fully opened up and never really noticed the second floor offering additional upstairs seating.

Given the now spoons effect the car park is a lot busier than when it was a beefeater and I was there at 11.15 on a Sunday morning.

More than 8 years later and things have changed..... three of the four handpulls were off this time! Incredibly, the only cask on was a Mild (not Robinsons, where this is a tied house), which seems like a really odd choice, if by design.

Coffee machine also on the blink, so what was probably north of £3 was a cup of instant Nescafe.

Regardless, we like the other punters, were here for the Sunday lunch and this was more than acceptable. Quick service and good quantities.

Shame about the beer situation!

Quite a nicely done taproom, down by the River Mersey in a converted factory, separated from the brewery by a glass door on the left-hand side. Simply furnished, but a step up from the usual canteen-style tables. Ten craft keg beers from the bar-back taps, plus a Session Pale and the Columbian Expresso Stout (£4.80) from the pair of handpumps.