Fountain Inn

One of my favourite gay pubs. The customers seem like nice regular people and the staff are always friendly. It has a dark room, but I go for the juke box which usually plays good songs.

The Fountain has had a facelift recently and the exterior is now painted a horrid lilac colour. The place is now very hard to miss and stands out several streets away!
The inside is furnished in dark wood, with wooden floors throughout. As you enter you are met with the bar serving a wide variety, plenty of spirits available and some real ale. The customer service of the staff isn’t always as good as it could be but on the times I have visited I’ve never had an issue.
Bar prices are above average for the area but the venue is quite ‘niche’ so can get away with it. The bar area opens out into a small dance floor, go through the walkway and you find the toilets which are an unusual affair. The whole venue is geared up for the cruise scene including the toilets so they are very ‘open plan’ with dark areas. Through the toilets into quite a narrow area with a few tables and chairs with a small plasma screen TV showing ‘films’. Not a bad venue. Not the sort of place you’d want to spend all night in but a good place to end a night out.

The Fountain is a pub and ‘hotel’ in the city centre of Birmingham, aimed at the gay, bi and open-​minded male market, though women are welcomed. It’s an old victorian building that has undergone extensive redevelopment, sadly losing some of its original charm, as it had a unique character, feeling like a local original pub yet with a city centre location. It still has some of its victorian character, but the carpets and softer aspects of its interior are long gone now, being replaced with hard flooring, and a large extension building that’s occasionally used for visiting acts.
Its clientele are mostly 30’s and upwards, and some real ale is provided, which is a great touch. The bar staff don’t always strive that hard — or even at all — to treat you as a valued customer, and this can be more than good enough reason to go elsewhere: shame as this place has seen better days, with both its interior and staff attitude.
If you want to meet locals then this can be a reasonable venue to start or finish your night, as its serving hours are reasonably late into the night: though its doors may have closed, it’s likely still to be serving inside. It does have a cruisy atmosphere, with rear rooms being the place to visit, if this is your thing. Otherwise, just hang out in one of their many bar areas. There’s also an outdoors smoking courtyard, with seating, that’s also good during the summer for ‘fresh’ air.