V-Shed (Lloyds No. 1), Bristol

Called in before starting a good crawl of Bristol bars as they had not opened yet, so had a quick one here. Typical Wetherspoon bar, but what I liked here was the separate smoking and non smoking areas by the river.

This is a large Lloyds No 1 bar in a three story former transit shed on the Harbourside. You enter past a decent outdoor seating area offering good views out over the water, into a spacious ground floor area with the servery tucked away in the rear left corner. There is a large open area for vertical drinking in the centre of the floor and then a sizable seating area over to the right, cordoned off by a long rail. The room is nice and bright at the front, but soon gets pretty gloomy as you move further back, so that on our mid-morning visit, everyone was sat in the front half of the pub. The décor has a grey and silver theme to it, with lots of exposed metal everywhere, be it in the form of exposed pipes, light fittings or even the large metal artworks that adorn some of the walls, although these are balanced out by some bright modern art prints elsewhere. A curved staircase to the left leads up to a carpeted first floor area where a row of standard tables and chairs give good views out across the harbour. Another curved staircase under a glass brick wall takes you up to the top floor where you will find a second bar to the left with limited handpulls, mostly offering the regular 'Spoons ales. This is a large carpeted L-shaped area with lots more seating, a large projector screen for showing sports and a TV broadcasting a rolling 24 hour news channel. The views from the window seats here are even better, but part of the front wall has no windows, so these seats are at a premium. Perhaps the most striking feature of the entire pub can be found up here - an enormous abstract metal sculpture that dominates the top of the staircase. The ale range on a Sunday morning was highly disappointing, perhaps because they'd taken a pounding last night or perhaps because they can't really be bothered. Just three 'Spoons regulars were available on this visit, so I decided not to have a pint and just enjoyed a mug of tea with my breakfast instead. The place was reasonably busy when we arrived and the barman warned that there might be a long wait for our fry-up, but having waited an eternity and seen much of the pub empty out, we were still without food and an enquiry at the bar established that our ticket had been lost in the kitchen. The order was put through again and arrived pretty quickly and the manager apologised and offered to get us a complimentary drink as an apology, but we ate our breakfasts and the drinks still hadn't appeared, so we gave up and left. All in all, this was a disappointing visit. It has a great location and is set in a potentially interesting building, but sadly it felt like a bit of a drinking barn with sloppy service and a poor beer range. I doubt I'd bother with this place the next time I'm in Bristol.

This is a converted dockside building with a mezzanine level resulting in three floors, bar serveries on the ground and upper levels. The pub's selling point is the waterside location and consequent views but otherwise there was no mistake to be found that this is one of the JDW chain with slow and haphazard service. We ate here, the food was the usual but took an age and needed a reminder to the staff before it arrived. We also couldn't quite fathom why my companion's white wine was served in a plastic wine glass inside the pub and at 2pm. The area is full of modern cafes and bars so this place will be very different at night I suspect, part of the ground floor is marked as a dance floor. Totally different mid afternoon with a more mature clientele eating and drinking. Six handpumps but only two festival beers on offer, the Moorhouse Ruby Witch was good though. Seating outside on the quayside and the best seats inside face the water but I felt that this place was lazily run and presumed that the purchasers of food and drink were not really considered beyond basic levels of service. Really could do much better.

Lloyds No 1 with a better range of beers than most Lloyds. Massive interior ever so high and 2 more floors so that it is quite a hike to the loos What was so good about this one as has been said before, is the location. A visit on Saturday and the front was like a suntrap, hard to believe for January. Yes it is the place to watch river traffic, or just people watch. Amazing location even just to while away a bit of time with a coffee if not into alcohol.