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Disappointment of the week with Mobyduck
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The City Arms, Oxford
Oxford
OX4 1UR
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 4 of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Steve C left this review about The City Arms
The City Arms is along and thin pub with a bar along the right-hand wall and a stage on the rear wall that was hosting drunken student karaoke. It was very busy but the service was prompt. Premium and craft keg was available alongside four hand pumps that were drawing Sharp’s Doom Bar and Goffs Brewery’s Cheltenham Gold alongside two offerings from Lilley’s cider. I’ll be leaving this place to the students in future.
On 27th December 2022
- rating: 4
[User has posted 5233 recommendations about 5201 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Graham Coombs left this review about The City Arms
a large sports pub, with numerous TV screens and a couple of pool tables. The sickly shades of blue, pink and purple do not suit the nice old building at all but there is a patio area to the side if it all gets too much. Ales on were just Ghost Ship and Doom Bar, with a Gladiator clip reversed.
On 2nd June 2022
- rating: 5
[User has posted 3339 recommendations about 3276 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Tris C left this review about City Arms
Formerly the University & City Arms, this was something of a local favourite of mine in the late '90s, when I'd come here with the bag and spend all day watching the cricket on the projector screen. I can't remember if it was a Morrell's pub or its later Firkin incarnation, but certainly not the Scream guff of its recent past. It's a 1930s' rebuild and what's immediately obvious is that it was built by Hall's as there are four iron HOB - Hall's Oxford Brewery - monograms above the windows to the doors; there's a sizeable beer patio to the side.
Inside it seems quite large, or did. I think that the bar has been brought forward, perhaps to accommodate kitchens as I'm sure if was once more spacious. Either way, it's now L-shaped and certainly not what it was: the walls are now painted in bands of pale grey, duck egg blue and candy pink; an utterly inharmonious combination, especially when juxtaposed against the black ceiling. The floor is a hotchpotch of pale wood, monochrome tiling and carpet tiles where a bored-looking man was watching the footie on the projector screen in preference to all the other TVs playing similar, though with the sound off. The wood topped bar front is black painted matchboard with a white shiny tiled bar back to which the pub's name has been applied in huge illuminated letters. Furniture is high and low and fairly conventional. Lighting is of the predictable metal shaded hanging variety or bulbs in wire cages. There are food menus on the tables, multiple flashing games machines and loud rap music emanating from the gramophone. The crowd as such was predictably young and all quite wisely drinking outside, though it was a very warm evening.
Ales: Gloom and Hobgoblin Gold at a very reasonable £1.90 a half and surprisingly good it was too.
Dear God this is an awful pub, even by Scowley Road standards, but at least it's significantly far out as to be quarantined from quality boozers, such that the discerning pub-goer need not be troubled by its existence.
On 29th August 2019
- rating: 3
[User has posted 1983 recommendations about 1949 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Quinno _ left this review about City Arms
A large student pub (Scream branded - a welcomely dying breed) with turn-of-the-century decor that whilst ok (and the heavy maroon coloured drape curtains lend more a homely air than the place deserves), is now desperately tatty. A long and fairly narrow room, with three different sports TVs competing against piped music, no audience for any. Some board games. Five pumps, four ales (two Cottage, Jennings Bullseye and some daft Wychwood pumpkin beer) plus Old Rosie cider. My Bullseye was cold and lackadaisical. Not really worth the bother.
On 7th November 2014
- rating: 4
[User has posted 5072 recommendations about 5055 pubs]