The Inn, Harrogate

Changed hands yet again no one seems to make a go of this one. Very much a dining experience with prices to match, although casual drinkers are welcome. Mostly laid out with square wooden tables even at the banquette seating, there are a couple of tall drinking tables in the middle by the counter. 3 pulls with on this visit Timothy Taylors Knowle Spring, Black Sheep Bitter, and the third blank, there’s also 8 solo keg taps. Plain refined decor, gentle jazz type sound track. The car park is chargeable as it used to be used as an informal park & ride but if you enter your reg number in the bar it’s free to patrons.

Official site of The Inn - www.theinnsouthstainley.com

Official site of The Inn - www.theinnsouthstainley.com

Now leased by the Seafood Pub Co and expensively refurbished in 2017 after a number of failed attempts to make the place pay. An open plan restaurant style place, four pulls two working with an Ilkley beer & Wainwright, the Ilkley was fine although the service was a bit hit & miss. Nicely renovated in modern style, not as corporate as the Marstons and Greene King equivalents and more up market. Accommodation available and the food isn't just seafood.

An older looking exterior probably redeveloped in the 1930s as a roadhouse, the interior is now very modern in style and the pub food led. It is divided into two parts and although each has a separate entrance there is an internal connection. One end is called a Family Dining Area and is laid out as a conventional restaurant with food servery and tables and chairs. The lounge bar section is open plan but has a number of alcoves, leather sofas and a fireplace in one, bench seating in another that can be divided off by folding wooden doors and a corner with books for sale for a local charity. There is a pool table and dart board in a further area off to one side. The main area is largely vertical drinking with an L shaped counter, home to two T Bars of conventional kegs and a couple of handpumps, average Black Sheep bitter on one of them the other unused. It's on the main bus route between Harrogate and Ripon and pleasant as it is, there's not much reason to get off the bus.