Landsdown Lounge Bar, Croydon

I popped into the Lansdowne Lounge Bar mid-afternoon on Thursday last week to find myself the only customer. The woman on duty was polite as she served me a generic lager from the usual draught suspects. Food is available all day with the mains coming in at around £5.50. The interior consists of a bar area with seating to the right and a slightly larger area to the left that was set for dining. A couple of plasma screens were showing muted news and there was some background music playing courtesy of Smooth Radio. I did spot a jukebox, but the lack of custom meant that it was not being used. The presence of a sweet dispenser led me to believe that children are permitted. Karaoke is advertised for Friday evenings. This is an uninteresting hotel bar that I probably still wouldn’t go back to if I was staying in the hotel.

Official site of the Lansdown Hotel - www.lansdownehotelcroydon.com

Official site of the Lansdown Hotel - www.lansdownehotelcroydon.com

This is a shallow, but wide, single room bar attached to the Landsdown Hotel. The servery is located on the right hand side of the room and is split in two by an awkwardly positioned pillar. There is a lot of open space, with tables and chairs constrained to the perimeter of the room. A few arty pints hang on the walls but overall the place is pretty bland and fails to elevate itself above the level of a low quality hotel bar. Large windows along the front of the room allow for quite a bit of light and there is an outdoor area with a few tables but not much to look at. The staff seemed like a friendly enough bunch, although service was laboriously slow. No real ale available, with the keg version of Greene King IPA being about as good as it gets. I gave it a try and found it way too cold and devoid of flavour. This place has rebranded itself a few times recently and now seems to be targeting the after hours office workers, which is how I ended up here with a bunch of colleagues. It’s entirely underwhelming and I have no intention of returning.