Circo Lounge, Westbourne, Bournemouth

Originally a newsagents, the ground floor of this high street terrace shop has been completely knocked through, though the original walls and wooden floors were retained to add character. It is now an all-day lounge bar offering snacks, coffees and drinks to weary shoppers. There is no room for vertical drinking, and the floorspace is taken up mainly by small (2 person) dining tables, plus a sofa and some armchairs on one side. The bar staff consisted of a bearded troll, who was pleasant and helpful, and a bunch of girls who were too focussed on inefficiently operating the coffee machine to be of any real use. The clientele fell into 2 main camps: families with small children and elderly couples who, in the absence of television, entertained themselves by procrastinating over which table to invest and making everyone else wait while they did so. One ale on handpump, DBC’s Jurassic, which was just a little too cold and had a strange aftertaste. Bath Ales’s Dark Side was available from a gas pump, and home made cakes seemed to be the best bet food-wise. A decent enough place to stop for refreshments when visiting the nearby B&O shop, but probably not somewhere I’d spend an evening, and I probably wouldn’t include in a crawl.

Official site of Circo Lounge - thelounges.co.uk

Official site of Circo Lounge - thelounges.co.uk