Charlie's, Knowle, Bristol

Charlie's is situated on a busy road. Once inside the bar faces in a smallish oblong shaped room which is bare boarded,there are settees and tall tables and chairs in the front room. There is a separate room to the rear which is down one step,there are more tall tables and stools and settees in this room. There was loud music playing which was decent from a juke box. There were no real ales on the bar,i had a drink of John Smiths Smooth Crap,which was a poor drink. I found all the seating here uncomfy. Pub visited 29/7/2017

For many years this was a traditional high street boozer known as The Talbot. Since then it’s gone through various incarnations including a Chinese restaurant and a steak house, and for the last couple of years has been known as Charlie’s which seems to be a bit of a cross between a pub and a cafe. The smaller area to the left seems to be very much the cafe area with a counter piled high with bottles of ketchup and a micro-wave and coffee machine behind it. The seating here was cafe like with plastic chequered tablecloths on the tables and blackboards on the wall detailing the food offering. The main part of the pub retains a sagging ceiling with a few black beams but that’s about the only feature that hints at it’s more traditional past. There is chequered tiling in shades of red and brown on the floor, black painted wood panelling on the lower part of the walls and pale grey paintwork above. Several strings of flashing fairly lights were hung around which was a little distracting and a couple of plasmas were showing the football. At the rear is a snug area with wood flooring and a couple of low sofas. The only tables in the pub were small white square ones, again rather cafe like and somehow it didn’t seem appropriate to sit at these just for a pint, although I’m sure you could have. The only other option was high chairs either at the bar or clustered around a pillar which had a circular table attached. Food wise, the menu looked to offer a reasonable selection of pub grub dishes with options such as Fish & Chips, Omelette, Curry, Chilli Con Carne, Burger or an all day breakfast and these were mostly priced around the £6 mark. The solitary beer on tap was Tribute whilst ciders were Blackthorn and Thatcher’s Gold. Although it has a slightly unusual ambience, overall this was a decent enough pit stop in an area that is somewhat bereft of any pubs.