retiredmartin

December 2023. Sheffield.

Better safe than sorry, I guess, but I’d really wanted to go somewhere new and unexciting on Saturday, but the weather forecast for Sheffield suggested we were in for 55mph storms and I was best off hiding in the basement. Except we don’t have a basement.

Those weather forecasts always overplay their hand and we emerged at noon with no-one else’s chickens and bins having blown on our lawn, and a rainbow clearly a signal to go to a pub.

Half an hour into Kelham,

still lovably scruffy despite the posh flats by the Don.

Hardly a breeze as we reached the Riverside, one of the first of the upmarket pubs in Kelham, the one with the words from the Beautiful South in fluorescent red on the wall.

“Don’t do all the talking let love speak up itself”, or, as the lights fail on a weekly basis ” all the talking speak up”

but at least they get it fixed quickly.

This is the one with the classic Wards windows,

and True North to their credit have revived a version of another old Sheffield classic which I’ve never seen anyone buy.

To be honest I rarely see any cask bought in the True North pubs, and while I chance the Belgian Blue I play safe with the Vocation keg for Mrs RM.

There’s a bouncer at the door, it’s Brentford in town at the Lane, and the lads are here ready to pounce on a table.

Their order is two (2) Pravha, three (3) Madris (or Madreeeeeds as they call it) and three (3) Staropramens. This is the reality.

I add two glasses of artisanal water to our order; it’s self service,

The young staff are, inevitably, as wonderful as the Motown soundtrack. “Come See About Me“, “You Can’t Hurry Love” and then a lurch into 1981 for Luther’s eternal classic.

It’s a good allrounder of a pub, something for every age group. Two babies are carried in by nervous Dads, a Christmas meet-up with reindeer jumpers, a few gentlefolk.

Oh, are WE the gentlefolk ?, ordering the fish (a whale, really) and chips and chilli.

The Belgian Blue is OK, lacking that last bit of crispness that gets you in the GBG, the Vocation is overchilled, but the True North food never disappoints.

And yes, they have Hendo’s.