Jolly's Hotel (JD Wetherspoon), Dundee

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Pub SignMan left this review about Jolly's Hotel (JD Wetherspoon)

This is a massive Wetherspoons pub – surely disproportionate for a town of Broughty Ferry’s size – just a short walk from both the train station and seafront. An alleyway leads you from the road, through a sizeable outdoor seating area, to the front door. Upon entering, you find yourself in a huge room with the servery over on the right hand wall. The room is mostly filled with high tables and stools, with a few regulation tables and chairs dotted around the fringes. The room has a bit of a drinking-barn feel to it and I can imagine it could be a bit of a nightmare on busy weekend evenings. There are large bookshelves on the back wall and an open kitchen over to the left. The pub then turns back on itself and runs all the way back to the road along the right hand side of the alleyway. You pass through a couple of seating areas before you make it all the way to the front of the building again. These rooms are carpeted and have a mix of chairs and remarkably high backed banquettes with some nice contemporary photos and a few historic pictures on display. A fireplace serves two of these areas, with a modern burner fitted inside. The front section sees the room branch out further to the right into a side room with modern floorboards, large potted plants, a few fancy art prints and some nice looking furniture including a couple of banquette booths. The pub also offers hotel rooms, which you’d probably need to take advantage of if you hope to explore this pub in full.
Nine of the twelve handpulls were in action, offering a mix of five guest ales and four ‘Spoons regulars, with two ‘Coming Soon’ clips and one unclipped wicket making up the numbers. I tried Redcastle Milk Stout at an impressive £1.69 a pint and thought it was a pretty good beer and definitely good value for money. The barmaid was very friendly and kindly offered me a taster before I made this significant financial investment.
I really liked this pub – it’s so big that it felt like there was an area to suit just about everyone’s tastes. It was quite nice to just ramble around with my pint, taking in the various areas for a while before moving on to the next and the addition of some cheap, well kept beer makes returning a very attractive prospect.

On 31^st May 2018 - rating: 7
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