The Pumphouse

Let me start by saying that when I was told I was going to ‘The Pumphouse’ for my gay best friends birthday I thought it was some sort of inuendo and there would be half naked men walking around, (maybe I just have a dirty mind!)
I have had a weekend of eating out — good for my taste buds naff for my waistline. This place was the last of the many resturants I went to and apart from being sick out eating out I tried to give it a fair judgment.
‘What would you like?’ — Waitress
’Erm, I’ll have the forest breeze’ — me
’I wouldn’t have that, tastes horrible!’ — Waitress
’Oh, okay, thanks — I’ll have The Pumphouse’ — me
(pulls a face) ‘Oooookay…’ — waitress
’Right well what can you recommend?’ — me
’You’re pretty safe with the Pina Colada.’ — waitress
’We’ll have 8 Pina Coladas then!’ — me
Why have a cocktail menu if they are all horrible, and even when we all got our drinks they were watery and took 15 mins to get to us. The food was lovely, just such a let down on the service, who were friendly just slow yet rushed us with the orders!
The place is huge, an old factory with parts of machines still in the building and the oldskool tiles on the wall. A really interesting setting to eat in. It seems such a shame that with the lovely food and great setting the staff can’t get it right. Gonna have to try a little harder to impress me Pumphouse.
Veggies beware, limited choice on menu!

The restaurant is housed in an old pumphouse (unsurprisingly!) and is a lovely interesting building. I had heard good things about it so was looking forward to it. However, I was not impressed on my visit. First of all it was almost empty so zero atmosphere. It seems the kitchen don’t care about the food they send out; my starter came with toasted bread which was burnt (can’t be blamed on a busy kitchen, and how hard is it to retoast another piece of bread after spotting you’ve burnt the first one?), the main courses were unmemorable and uneventful, and my dessert was huge but cheap tasting. For a £5 dessert I would have much preferred a smaller portion but made with quality ingredients. I haven’t been back since and do not plan to.

This place has changed management in the last few months and althougth the menu looks as though it hasn’t changed drastically (apart from the introduction of a pizza menu), the quality of food has. The building is lovely, large and quite unusual — it has a sort of warehouse feel but still feels cosy. They still do lovely cocktails but the food isn’t the high standard it use to be, which is a shame, because as the location is so far away from everything else that unless you live in one of the lovely looking apartments nearby, it’s certainly not the type of place you would make a special trip for.

I do like this restaurant, the food is scrumptious, quite up market, and there is a nice atmopshere to the place. It is an old pumphouse, so the building is quite a sight, and interesting inside. There is proper parking for customers, and an upstairs aswell as a large downstairs area. It is very well presented, and if the manager wasn’t a little uptight i would definitely go to this place regularly. I played a gig here, ate some food, had a few drinks and it was nice. i recommend eating here, playing on the other hand, i’d think again. The people are only there to socilaise, and eat their dinner, it’s not really a music place.