Pub Thoughts #16 (The Non-Review)

I visited a pub recently that, before I went in, I really wanted to review. I drank there, periodically at least, years ago. It had closed during Covid and my assumption was that it would never come back. And yet, here it was, recently re-opened. A pub back from the dead is a miracle in this day and age. And I wanted to support the pub, both through buying and pint and through sharing the good news to my tens of readers. And yet. My excitement soon dissipated. The interior had been gutted. Sure, it had been a little old-fashioned rather than “traditional”. It probably needed a bit of a refresh. Maybe there had been a load of damage from it sitting empty for years. But it was still a shame to see the place stripped back to brickwork, the bar re-situated to lurk near the back rather than welcome near the front, the nooks and crannies that gave the place character gone from all the knocking-through that had gone on. But I didn’t want to judge things on appearances alone. So I went to the…