retiredmartin

One day left to catch up with the blogs AND write my famous 2021 Awards Post (or at least Part 1/14).

I’d nearly caught up, but I’ve just done another dozen pubs in Durham and Edinburgh, because you don’t save pubs from the comfort of your home.

This must be December 27th, a fifth day since my last tick (22/12) and I was getting restless by now. I was desperate to be off to Banks, or Bideford, or Bala, but we had guests round and Mrs RM also wanted the garage cleared out before we get it converted into a guest room so that GBG tickers can stay at a discount rate next year.

But by 17:00 we were bored, and I persuaded Mrs RM out to this week’s new Sheffield pre-emptive;

SALT have finally got a toe-hold in Kelham Island, taking on the lovely building at the Green Lane works.

We’d popped in the old Stew & Oyster just before Ossett’s crafty offshoot revamped it completely (are you keeping up ?), finding it quirky (stew !) but unbearably echoey.

Could SALT sort out the acoustics ?

Well, despite stripping back the building to basics it seemed to be coping OK, and if it hadn’t been for Mrs RM’s uncanny ability to find a spare table in a packed pub.

The bar has been moved from Stew & Oyster days, but is still that winning combo of tall keg fonts and dangling glasses us old codgers love.

Oooh, White Rat for the codger, and the Alpaca for Mrs RM.

Let’s be honest; the cask is tasty but lacks Halifax or Hebden quality crispness, the keg is a bit too cold. Solution: tip the keg into the foamy Black Rat glass and get the best of both world, AND annoy Mrs RM by nicking her beer (fear not, I bought her another one).

But never mind that. The people ! It was like being in a glossy advert for a trendy pub in Hackney Wick (Shoreditch is so 2011).

Blokes in Hollister t-shirts, lasses with giant hats. This is SALT’s target market, and they’ve struck gold.

Great modern music, too, played at exactly the right volume so that I could actually hear Mrs RM but could legitimately pretend that I couldn’t.

And Bao buns (a fiver, £2 more with fries) which were exactly the right size to go with a pint. And of course you get one of those little buzzers that we all love that tell you when you can collect your own plate from the kitchen. Very efficient.

It’s a winner. Though probably not one for the Proper Pubs Day Out to Sheffield when that happens.

And then out into the warm(ish) Sheffield night, and thence to the Tesco Express to pick up some stuff for the stew Mrs RM prepared for our next set of visitors.

So it should have ended there, but it never does, does it ?