Jam Circus, Deptford, SE8

Official site of Job Centre - jamcircus.com

Official site of Job Centre - jamcircus.com

Just over the road from Deptford station, this is a fairly large, single room Antic pub situated, as the name suggests, in the town’s old job centre office. The room has a bare concrete floor with dark purple painted walls around much of the perimeter, plus a very cool wooden wall set out in an impressive geometric pattern along the right-hand wall. Below this, a very long banquette serves a number of old school-style tables with an eccentric mismatch of chairs in support, whilst a row of smaller square tables runs through the centre of the room, again supported by all manner of chairs. High tables and stools fill the front left part of the room and a few more spring up here and there in the rear area, beyond the servery. The bar runs along the left-hand wall with a white wood panel counter front, very basic bar back and a few nice potted plants suspended from above. A small pump clip collection on one of the purple walls, frames a ‘Welcome Back’ message that hints at the fact that the pub failed to reopen in the summer of 2020 between lockdowns. Judging by the almost total lack of other customers, it seems like a lot of the regulars are unaware that it has reopened now. The usual Antic tat is surprisingly conspicuous by its absence and only a lone ‘The Jobs Board’ sign hints at the buildings former use. What few customers were in on my Thursday evening visit, had headed out to a rear beer garden, which I failed to explore myself, whilst one other punter had opted for a seat out on the busy pavement to the front of the pub. This exodus outside may have been due to the nice weather or perhaps the pandemic, although it might just as likely have been because they were playing dreadful pop music at a loud volume inside the pub, or at least it felt very load with no-one else sat inside to drown it out. Upon arriving I was given a printed menu which listed two cask ales – Volden Session (£3.30 a pint) and Volden Pale (£4.50 a pint). Having been stung for a very expensive beer in the previous pub I visited, I asked for a pint of the Session, which the friendly but rather dim barman went off to fetch, only to return with the news that this beer was off. This process was then repeated when I ordered a pint of Pale instead, so I eventually settled on a pint of Villages Rafiki on keg, for which I was charged an upsetting £6.00 – considerably more than the same beer was available for in the Villages Brewery tap just a short walk from here. This seemed like a decent enough pub that was struggling a bit in the wake of the pandemic. I certainly can’t say I saw the place in a good light, with an empty room hardly representative of the pub’s best side, and the lack of ale (presumably a result of the sluggish post-lockdown trade) didn’t help either. Having said all that, the place seems to have the right ingredients to be a good pub and I would be interested to give it another try once the customers are back and the beer is flowing again.

Bit too scruffy and basic for my liking.Busy enough.Loud music and acoustics.Friendly barman.3 cask beers from Saltaire ,Arbor and Volden but I went for the reasonably priced keg beer Villages -Rodeo (local brewer).Good beer.

Minimalist Antic London conversion of the eponymous former employment exchange, with very limited furniture and almost no attempt at decor. Features a two-part counter to one side of the large rectangular bar, but the further half of this is not currently in use. A few wooden picnic benches seem to have been thrown together in the back yard. Four of six handpumps operational, with Deuchars IPA, Adnams Lighthouse, Brockley Porter (£3.60, in good form) and Old Rosie cider available. Jerry Lee Lewis and then Elvis LPs on the turntable, and free mince pies offered on Christmas Eve.

This is one of the latest additions to the Antic Stable, obviously in a converted old job centre. Being an Antic conversion every expense has been spared in providing luxurious furnishings. What we have here is cheap upholstered banquettes along the wall, cheap second hand mismatched tables and chairs, and to complete the shabby look, what must be the original job centre's well worn (to put it mildly) lino still on the floor. There is a jobs board on one of the walls (the Antic website refers to this) advertising Antic jobs. The post of CEO seems to have gone, but there seemed to be many others of a much less senior level. They have achieved superbly the depressing feel of a 70s/80s job centre. Of the six handpumps four were in use - one with Old Rosie cider, another with Deuchar's IPA, and the other two with Brockley Porter (£1.80 a half) and a Hop Stuff ale. The Brockley Porter was in good shape, but the ale selection while "OK" is not particularly good by Antic standards. It's nowhere near as characterful (and I accept that injecting pub character into an old job centre is no easy task) and nor is the ale selection in the same league as the nearby Royal Albert. I found this quite a dreary pub, although I did visit on a miserable wet and overcast day, and perhaps it would be better when it was busier.

Newly opened amid some local controversy, this Antic pub chain offering is, as the name suggests, housed within the old job centre building just outside Deptford station. The pub appears to be a work in progress with much of the cavernous single room interior seemingly half decorated and awaiting the fluffy end of a paint brush. The bare floors and exposed ceiling pipes merely accentuate the half finished appearance and I would like to think that in due course everything will be spruced up and a bit easier on the eye. A section of wallspace next to the open bar contained a series of job advertisements and given that there was a stream of people entering the building and studying them I can either assume they are genuine or the place is fooling many an unsuspecting passer by. Beyond the largely unfurnished rear is a small patio area with benches, hardly an aesthetic feature but serving its functional requirements. Ales and Deptford are rarely mentioned in the same sentence other than to describe the lack of them so the 6 hand pumps are a welcome sight albeit one was unused on my visit. The others were populated by Dark Star Hophead, Sunny Republic Beach Blonde, Thornbridge Jaipur IPA, Caledonian Duechars and Old Rosie Cider. Of the 2 I tried, the Beach Blonde had probably been laying in the sun for too long whilst the Hophead fared somewhat better. Prices were reasonable and I imagine that they will offer a food menu once the place has found its feet. Antic seem to like hurrying their pubs to be open for business and these premature opeings do tend to cloud the initial impressions. My initial Job Centre experience is probably not the most reliable and whilst it is a welcome addition to Deptford’s virtually non-existant pub scene, I would expect to see ongoing improvements over the coming months.