The Mermaid Hotel, Yeovil

A former town hotel and coaching inn, now a town centre pub with two entrances. It's currently a Palmers pub,though far from their best. The former coach yard is now a paved garden used primarily by smokers and children -it's functional rather than pretty. The inside rambles, forming various nooks and crannies for drinking and dining, one of which houses a pool table. There are various gaming machines dotted around and the background noise is provided by an unobtrusive jukebox. Staff are a little on the slow side but otherwise reasonably pleasant. Two ales on draught, both from Palmers, were 200 and IPA. The beer was in good condition. OK for a swift pint at lunchtime and I'd include in a crawl.

This is an old building that has almost certainly been knocked through into a single space. This may not have been done by the current owners Palmers as I don't recall them having any outlets in the Yeovil area back in early CAMRA days. This open space is entered via a few steps and is a rambling affair with a split level room down to the left as you enter and a pool room down to the right. The bar takes up a corner ahead of this then there is a further dining room over to the right at the rear. It was fairly quiet on my early Tuesday afternoon visit. The bar has two sets of four hand pumps but only two of each were in use with Palmers IPA & 200. I went for the IPA (£3.20) which was in good nick. While not really being my sort of place I didn't think it was that bad.

A 15th century town centre coaching Inn. Alas it’s now a bland and higgledy-piggledy place lacking any real character or history, bar the ceremonial dark wood carved seat. Otherwise it’s pool, pub grub, an ill-fitted pub carpet and the feel of a perennial Sunday-afternoon-before-work feel. Four pumps with two on from Palmers, Bitter (passable) and 250. 4.5

A good PSM review covers the main points,this Palmers tied house has a strange interior layout with a corridor through the interior and two sections at lower level,to the left a few modern tables ,chairs and a Victorian fireplace ,sadly unused.To the right is a pool table while further back to the right is the hotel dining room,lights off on my lunchtime trip.There are four handpump on the two sided bar but just two choices on my visit in Best Bitter (decent enough) and 200.At least the large flatscreen was turned off,but the grey interior paintwork doesn't lift the spirits.There is a juke box,gaming machines in what is quite a basic boozer.OK if you want Palmers real ale,but hardly memorable.

A plaque outside this pub notes that it is the oldest licensed premises in Yeovil, so I entered in the hope of finding a lovely old traditional inn. Instead, I found a dark, confused muddle of a pub with very few redeeming features and no real sense of history. The first thing that struck me as I entered the main central part of the pub from the High Street entrance (you can also enter from Princes Street), was the almost complete lack of light which required a good couple of minutes to acclimatise to. I was eventually able to establish that the pub comprises a number of small areas across slightly different levels, each of which would have presumably been a separate room once upon a time, but which have now been rather crudely opened up to create an odd shaped interior. The bar is to the rear left and is split into two sections where a partitioning wall would once have been. I went down to the lower left hand end of the bar to order and noticed that the surrounding area was being set up for a disco. On the opposite side of the room is an area housing a pool table and there was an adjacent space to the right rear which looked out of commission altogether. There is also a notable lack of seating inside, with just a couple of tables and chairs near the entrance and some more by the bar, where a few locals were chatting to the staff or watching football on the TV screen. I couldn’t bear the gloom, so I took my beer to the rear courtyard, which has a few picnic benches and large umbrellas for the smokers, but little else of distraction. The place still functions as a hotel and has 14 rooms, hopefully more presentable than the rest of the building. The one saving grace I found was the beer, with three ales from the reliable Palmers brewery available – Best, Copper Ale and 200. I tried the Copper Ale, not normally my favourite, and found it to be in good condition. The barmaid seemed nice enough and at least had a bit of rapport with her regulars. This place promised much but really failed to deliver on almost all fronts except for the beer, which was at least enjoyable. Maybe this place was never that special, but it does feel like a real opportunity has been missed here and I really can’t see me making the effort to return here the next time I’m in town.

The 'in place' of the seventies and eighties is now very much quieter and the restaurant's reputation is nowhere near what it was. Nevertheless still serves adequate (Palmers) beer and good food (evenings only) at a reasonable price. One of the better pubs in Yeovil although the cream paint job over the oak panelling was nothing short of criminal and did the ambience no favours whatsoever. Average.