The Star, Harrow

Official site of The Star - www.aurapubco.com

Official site of The Star - www.aurapubco.com

Originally The Constellation, it was The Fornax and Firkin for a short while before losing most of its stars to become, well, just The Star. It's currently owned by Punch, and it isn't their best advert. Steve describes it well below. The TV screen and gaming machines are still here, there is a dartboard and pool table, but they no longer sell real ale on draft. There is a covered patio at the front, quite large, with plenty of tables and wooden benches. Two bottled beers were on offer, Newcastle Brown and Hobgoblin. The barman was both insulting and numerically challenged when it came to counting out change. This one fails to shine.

This is a large pub that has plasma screens throughout and also a large projector screen at the rear which is found in between two pool tables. Behind the projector there is a raised area with couches and after spotting some advertisements for live music nights I ascertained that this doubles up as a stage area. My visit was early last Saturday afternoon so there was obviously no band playing, but there was a decent selection of background songs whilst muted Gillette Soccer Saturday was being shown on the screens. There are advertisements for Sky Sports and I got the feeling that every game is shown, be it Premiership or Conference. Various seating can be found in the form of the aforementioned couches along with normal seating and high tables and I thought that it had been done well to cater for most people’s tastes. There are a couple of hand pumps which were both dispensing Pride and a standard draught range is also available alongside Staropramen. I thought that the barman was friendly and the few locals sitting at the bar were having some friendly banter about the Grand National sweep which I was invited to participate in. A decent sized paved beer garden is located out the front and this is packed with picnic tables, but it is next to a very busy road that has lots of buses screaming past in first gear so as to make as much noise as possible. I would return based on this Saturday afternoon visit, but I did get the feeling that I wouldn’t be so impressed on a weekend night as it does seem like it could be geared towards a younger crowd – I may be wrong though.