Gosforth Hotel

boring pub it must be said…

At its Salters Road entrance (as opposed to the High Street entrance) this Mitchells and Butlers pub has a very civilised, really lovely old snug serving real ales and there are no noisy juke boxes or gaming machines in the room. It’s a great meeting place and I love it. The clientele who frequent this snug are mainly well-​behaved respectable business and professional people– doctors, teachers, managers, architects, lawyers etc — but common old working chaps like me are also welcome. Unfortunately snug customers have to walk through the main bar to share the pretty awful toilets with some pretty awful types who drink in the main bar nowadays.
While most of the main bar customers are respectable, there’s far too much low life there. One old man often shouts at the top of his voice and bothers strangers by trying to shake their hands, scrounging money and spitting in their faces while introducing himself. His notoriously incontiment companion stinks of urine. My friend tells me a group of incredibly rough, loud female customers began fighting there some time ago and broke glasses one evening. One was arrested later at another pub for assaulting a police officer. A tramp who sleeps on a park bench frequents the bar. He drinks the dregs from glasses left by customers. The licensee allows him to store his rucksack upstairs in their flat. My friend also tells me that a man who was barred for life from ALL the local pubs has returned to drink here regularly. While mocking a severely disabled chap’s disability, the man and his son loudly offered to have rough sexual intercourse with the wheelchair-​bound disabled man’s wife. The lady was terrified.
It’s a hangout for known local criminals and patients of the local psychiatric hospital too.
The food is pretty awful but only complete strangers unwittingly eat in the main bar. My wife and I stopped going to this pub a couple of months ago. It’s no longer well-​managed in my opinion. The staff would like certain people to be barred, but the absentee licensee (who prefers to serve in the quiet genteel snug) doesn’t seem to care. I think M&B have lost the plot here and in the northeast generally — some of their other pubs are pretty awful too.
The Gosforth Hotel main bar is best avoided, but the snug is very nice if you can tolerate having to use the toilets. We can no longer bear being in the same toilets as some of the people who frequent the main bar.
It’s not the cleanest of pubs. From time to time you can smell sewage odours coming from the cellar — there are long standing problems with drains in the pub. Also there is never any soap in the mens’ toilet and my wife tells me there’s rarely any soap or toilet paper in the Ladies. I’m told M&B have introduced cost-​cutting measures to save money on employing cleaners — the bar staff clean the loos first thing in the morning.

Quite an average pub with a bit of a Victorian feel to me. It is often quite busy in the evenings at weekends and isnt family friendly. The prices are about average and it is convenient to a number of restaurants.

Reasonable pub in Gosforth that seems a little worn at edge I feel.
Always easy to get a seat and music never too loud. Taxi office jus next door — handy:)
The County further up the high street (and closer to town) seems to have the edge for me.