The Castle, Golders Green, NW11

Closed December 2012. I visited this pub once in 2010 and it was much as described below: I too had to wait an age whilst the barmaid, holding my pint, chatted with locals. It was a dreary place and I wouldn't have returned but it's a shame that demolition is almost a dead cert.

will now be destroyed and replaced with flats after Barnet Borough Council voted not to list it as a community asset.

I think that first impressions are very important and having to wait for the landlady/barmaid to finish her conversation before being served didn't really make this thirsty traveller feel very welcome. The icing on the cake was having to wait for her to finish another conversation whilst she was standing behind the bar with my full pint in her hand. I wouldn't have minded except for the fact that the local she was talking to looked like he had been there all day and I'm sure that whatever they were talking about could have waited for 30 seconds.. The pub is one of these sprawling places that find it very difficult to get enough patronage to generate much of an atmosphere. The Liverpool match on Setanta was being shown on both of the plasma screens that I spotted and out of the 15 people in the pub only a couple of them were watching it. There seemed to be a lot of flyers up on the walls advertising live music and karaoke on Thursday nights and the last time I went past here there was a wedding reception going on so maybe most of their money is generated through functions, not that I would want to hold any celebration here. The toilets are a mess with two cubicles that didn't have a toilet roll, lock on the door or toilet seat between them. I'd probably use this place if I lived locally as it does have a pool table, but as I live a fair trot away I won't be returning here again.