Woodside Tavern

I have been to the Woodside on a few occasions for both food and for drinks and it is a nice place. Although it is technically my local I feel it doesn’t have the character that a local pub should. Not sure whether this place is firstly a carvery (like a Toby) or a traditional pub?
Having had a carvey here I would recommend it. Varied selection of meats, as you would expect although avoid a Sunday as it doubles in prce!
Also decent selection of other ‘non carvery’ meals too (had a nice burger here).
Nice drinks selection and not too pricey. Generally decent atmosphere and friendly bar staff! Also has a beer garden surrounding the building but is slightly underwhelming, overlooking the main road and ring road roundabout. Overall a good choice for a carvery and a couple of pints!

I’ve been to the Woodside a few times recently on increasingly frequent trips to Horsforth, and I’ve gotta say I’m a fan!
It’s a huge building, which is good as this allows it to have a nice big bar area as well as a massive separate dining area, both of which are nicely furnished. The staff seem mostly pretty friendly, although whether you get a bit banter seems pot luck on who serves you.
One major plus point is the carvery. You get 3 carves of different types of meat given to you, which I think can vary, and then you’re handed the plate to fill it up with as much trimmings as you can fit in you/​on the plate! And it’s all good stuff too — I went a bit crazy for the honey glazed parsnips! The price is even good too — I’m sure it was about £5/£6 but then about £10 on a Sunday.
Drinks wise there’s a limited range of guest ales and decent drinks on draught, so whilst you don’t get a massive range there’s more than likely something you’ll be pretty happy to drink. And price wise you’re looking at a little over £3, which is pretty standard nowadays.
There’s also a decent, if not amazing beer garden outside. There’s a fair few seats scattered around, along with a play area for the kids and then some more benches, although they’re pretty close to the roadside which might not suit some people.
All in all I always come away with a smile on face. I’ve stopped short of 5* just because there are a few things that could be better. And I’ll be honest, I get a bit tight when it comes to handing out 5* reviews — a place has to be pretty much perfect to get that!
Definitely go along to try the carvery though — it’s that all too occasional of lovely but also massive!

My all time favorite place to go for a carvery!
The food is lovely, the drink prices are reasonable and the staff are helpful and friendly.
It’s a nice place to go in summer as it has a good amount of seats and tables outside, and it’s a good place to go in winter as it’s cozy inside.

The Woodside is a rather magnificent looking boozer from the outside and although it took me 2 years to get round to going inside it has now become a weekly ritual, even twice weekly if I manage to con the wife into paying!
The inside is also magnificent, very clean and very well decorated. Nice seating etc etc and warm and friendly staff (they must be warm as they’re not dead!) although the waitresses are rather young so aren’t the speediest, just sit in the pub area and help yourself (after paying at the bar, I don’t want you getting into bother for robbing some spuds!)
Mon to Sat it’s under a fiver (4.99, I cherish those pennies!) but on Sunday it’s 8.99 (I don’t know if you get anything extra for the increased price as I am wayyyyy too tight to pay that!)
For 4.99 you get a choice of 3 meats or a bit of all 3 and a chipolata and a stuffing ball and a real homemade yorkshire pudding (which is also what the wife calls me) and then you move to the veg section… BOOM! What a veritable feast of earth based grown things I see before me! I have NEVER seen so many veg’s available at ANY carvery, yesterday was Red Cabbage and White, leeks, parsnips (roasted), sprouts with chestnuts (roasted) Carrots, Cauliflower in sauce (dunno if that’s roasted but it looks toasted lol), GREEN cauliflower, Roast spuds, mashed spuds, New spuds and 2 massive vats on gravy, 1 onion and 1 roast meat. Yum bloody Yum is all I can say. Everything is cooked spot on and nice and warm and if you’re not full up after a meal here then you must be able to eat a whole cow! If I wasn’t so tight I would say it’s worth £8.99 but when I can get it for under a fiver that’s illogical as Spock would say.
It just leaves me to say that I have been more than 10 times now and it’s been great every time. They always have one or two guest ales although I am partial to Bombardier which is always on and it’s hand pulled (no inuendo but Ooer as Finbar Saunders would say) AND it makes me fall over after 6 pints, all is good :)

Now then. Calling all gluttons! Mouth stuffers ahoy! Full steam ahead to the glory of the five quid carvery. It was raining, it had been a long Sunday browsing at the Garden Centre, and we were ravenous. We were too far gone to cook from scratch, we were too low on fundage to get a proper meal and too hungry to wait for take away. Brain wave — not tried the carvery here yet. Done.
We zoomed over to Horsforth and parked up with ease. It was busy but not so much so that there wasn’t room for two wee ones. The queuing system seemed a little off course, I think we were meant to wait and be seated but there was no one there to greet us, so we went straight to the carvery and were gifted meats and vegetable stuffs.
I chose the pork and beef and both were really good — very tasty and well cooked. The array of vegetables was huge too. They had three kinds of potato (the mash was excellent), courgettes, cauli, broccoli, carrots, cabbage and more. Certainly more choice than I needed and in spite of the nature of the carvery (the school dinner style system if you know what I mean) everything tasted great. Tons of gravy was available too, which was suited me perfectly as I like to drown my roasts in gravy.
The waitress, who was a little flustered by us having helped ourselves, was lovely and took our drinks order straight away. We pretty much demolished the carvery in about 15 minutes and sat feeling over full, having eaten far more than we needed. In typical ‘eyes bigger than my stomach’ style, I couldn’t finish my plate and so we paid the bill, which came to about twenty pounds and slumped back to the van.
The restaurant are of the pub is clean, welcoming and has plenty of space. We arrived at about half three, which appeared to be the perfect timing since by the time we vacated a huge queue had formed at the carvery. I’m guessing it’s the optimum time to avoid the crowd! All in all, a perfect place to grab some cheap but tasty pub roasts on a Sunday. Nom!

Quick Baldrick, let’s all head to Mrs Miggin’s pie shop for a slap up dinner. I need a good feed and I need it now. Good job I checked out the Woodside then.
It’s a cracking pub near the stupidly busy ring road in Horsforth. Don’t let the stinky traffic put you off though. That’s because it’s carvery is top notch. Oh yes, I’ll shout it from the roof tops. Well done sir, take a bow chef, this is a GREAT carvery.
We’re not talking over cooked frozen veg and pre packaged meats here. It’s fresh produce and proud of it. So choice your meat of choice (three of the babies available) and go forth and spread the carvery love.
Of course that’s not all on offer but it’s a pretty good seller in it’s own right. More than ample wines, lager and your usual spirits mean you can have a refreshing beverage of your choice. Oh and the fair-​trade hot chocolate is yummy.
It’s beautifully done out too with a fresh contemporary feel if a little unoriginal. Well you can’t have everything in this life can you.

You’ll struggle to see the woods that this pub is on the side of, but other than the confusing name, The Woodside does everything right.
Located on that annoyingly small roundabout in Horsforth, the Woodside focuses on providing fine pub gastronomy as much as it does a warm atmosphere and a wide selection of booze. The menu outdoes almost every other pub in Horsforth in terms of range and quality, and you can tell the dishes are prepared with a bit more care than most other pubs that will happily microwave frozen produce.
The carvery deserves a mention too — moist meats and impressive Yorkshire puddings combine to ensure an enjoyable experience, however, if you do intend to go to the carvery, I suggest you starve yourself for a couple of days before hand. You’ll thank me for the advice afterwards.