The Salutation

Since the two earlier reviews, this pub has become arguably the worst in the whole of County Durham. The person who did that marvellous food left, so there were no more of her emormous plate pies. An Asian guy took it over and killed the trade by his constant swearing in front of the customers. A couple of years ago, I started going to the Sunday night quiz and things had improved again. It has changed hands twice since then, most recently by a young couple who have absolutely no idea how to run a pub. We’ve lost all but 4 regular quiz teams because customers’ preferred drinks were nearly always off. Last Tuesday, they did a midnight flit, so our team went to the newly refurbished Garden House pub. We hope to move the Sunday quiz to there, if an acceptable deal can be brokered with the new manager. As for the Salutation, it’s off the list for the forseable future, as it will take a superhuman effort to turn it round again.

Really nice pub located in Framwellgate Moor near New College Durham.
It looks really smart from the outside and there is a medium sized car park which is very handy.
Open all day, they also serve food, which I can highly recommend! Very reasonably priced and extremely tasty. It’s just normal pub grub which makes a nice change from what you get in a lot of places now.
They have a fairly wide selection of different drinks and occasionally have guest ales on.
There are 2 areas; the bar and the lounge. In the bar they have a pool table, but this is always busy and it takes ages to get a game!

If I could recommend any one pub in Durham, this one would be the one. The pub is situated near New College Durham, a local further education college, but attracts many locals as well, and they get along nicely together. The pub opens at 11.30am and gets busy shortly afterwards. There’s 2 sections to the pub — a bar area, with lots of seating and a pool table, and a lounge area that mainly attracts people from local businesses for lunch. The students tend to stay in the bar area, and around the pool table. There are a few tables outside, too.
Upstairs is a function room. On Thursday nights there’s a Karaōke competition, which attracts many locals of all ages.
The prices of drinks in the Salutation (known as ‘the Sally’) are average, although compared to other pubs in the vicinity they may seem high. Food is excellent, though, and consists of the usual pub meals — steak in ale pie, gammon and egg, chilli along with vegetarian options, lighter options and a few snacks.
The pub is well-​maintained and is nicely decorated — with a style somewhere in between trendy bar and old-​fashioned pub.