The Marquis of Granby, Epsom

An interesting old building, although the frontage is a bit overwhelmed with outdoor furniture. Inside I found a rambling low-ceilinged place with a pleasant buzz of conversation but the plethora of clipboard menus on all the tables was a bit depressing. Even more depressing was the choice of ales, with just Doom Bar on and TT Landlord and TEA not. There was nothing especially wrong with the pint, apart from it being Doom Bar, however so I will let them off this time.

The Marquis of Granby was not originally on my planned list of Epsom pubs to try, but I added it as a bonus and we aimed to visit here first. Sadly, it turned out to be more of a red herring than a bonus. Having scanned the Covid app, we waited patiently at the podium by the entrance from the street. We were encouraged by plenty of available tables. The waiter said he'd be with us in a couple of minutes. We waited whilst he tried to offer assistance to a lady who was having a typical problem of our current times - making a successful order on an app. He helped her to achieve this and wandered off before returning to the same lady to tell her that unfortunately there was no chef to cook the food she had ordered. You couldn't make it up! After a 6-7 minute wait, the guy finally turned to us and asked us if we'd booked. We replied in the negative and he responded by saying that they were too busy, short staffed and unable to allow us entrance. You would have thought that after 4 months being closed that all pubs would be eager to welcome customers back, but this one clearly hasn't got its act together just yet. As such, it would be best to give it a wide berth until footfall reduces and it can cope with demand again.

Quite an interesting old red-brick building, featuring a portico entrance with a balcony above. It is benefits from having a large front patio garden, so I'll admit to not stepping inside once the coronavirus formalities had been completed because it was an unexpectedly pleasant mid-October afternoon. Unfortunately, the only real ale available was Doom Bar (£4.25) but thankfully that was in as good a shape as one might hope for.

Low ceilinged,meandering sort of pub with alcoves.Lots of seating to the front of the pub.Very busy.Cask beers were Doom,Fyne -avalanche and Great Heck -mercy.The Great Heck was pure sarsons but was changed and upgraded for Keg Cigar City-Invasion 5.0 at no extra cost.Nice one.(As a point of interest(to me anyway)I have been to the Cigar City tap room when it was rated the best brewery in the world.Tremendous beers then and now in Tampa Florida.)The weather was a tad better in Florida.