The River

Ah, The River. When I lived in Bristol my friends and I came here all the time for their incredibly expensive cocktails. This was years ago and I’m sure things have changed a bit, but the drinks were incredible and many good drunken memories were had.

Although the water (regardless of if it’s sea, rivers, lakes, canals or esturies) always draws me in at anytime of the year, there is something so mesmerising about it, it posesses similar qualities to watching fire, I could sit and watch it for hours… However waterside bars don’t have the same year round quality.
In the summer I swear by them, they are the lifeblood of what any water trip requires for it to maintain optimum success! But in the winter, I often feel sadened by the waether when inside a bar looking at the rotten weather. whereas it doesn’t seem to bother me when I am out in it!
The River is a fairly averahe bar, which due to my differing allegiences at different times of the year pulls me in two minds for my opinion. In the summer I love it, I love grabing a cold pint and being so close to the Avon, its beautiful. But in the winter it’s horrible, the food seems so much blander and I can’t seem to think of anything but wanting to go home!

I try to avoid venturing to the water front during the weekends, but if I’m forced to I try and steer things in the direction of this bar. It ain’t great, but by comparison to the other bars along the waters edge it’s a pleasure.
They used to do decent pub food in here a while ago and I used to to have the occasional pub lunch here when they served Pieminister pies and lovely greek salads, but sadly no more from what I can tell.
Not sure if it’s under new management but the food has sadly gone down hill in general. I went with some friends a few weeks back for breakfast. Not only did it take a while to arrive, but the smell from the toiets was quite unpleasant (we luckily managed to move once we got the food) they confused our orders, I got my food 15 mins before the rest of the table (pet hate).

Bristol in having-a-bar-that’s-actually-okay-on-the-waterfront shocker! Maybe it’s because it’s literally the first venue you come to when you enter the waterfront that somehow makes this not quite as squalid as the filth that is to follow.
This place isn’t perfect, but it offers a decent range of beers and cocktails (which are £2 off on Sunday nights), seating out the front, DJs and bands on weekends and, most importantly, not too much of the pondlife that are naturally attracted to the rest of the waterfront. I haven’t eaten here for a while, but they also used to serve us some cracking bangers and mash. It gets busy later on but the independently owned River remains the best of this particular bad bunch.

The River is a nice slightly up market bar, which has well trained staff and a good drinks menu. There’s very often a band playing music, which get the punters up dancing and because of it’s location and trendy atmosphere, is always a popular place to park a pint!