Pint Shop — Restaurant in Cambridge

We’ve read the reviews about the service and decided to try it given that we were in no hurry and heard that the food is good.

True to my expectation, the food was good. But the service was simply horrible. As we turned up early and there was no one to show us to the table, we decided to go to the bar to get some drinks. The young lady who was at the bar did not seem too cheery. She offered to open a tab and showed us to our table,which made us feel better. However, I was then presented with a machine to pay (having told she was going to open a tab). I paid anyway, thinking they’ll probably adjust it on the bill at the end. And she proceeded to serve others, as though the conversation we had earlier didn’t happen!

We waited for awhile, then proceeded to the dining room and asked another member of staff if we could be shown to our table early, and the staff said she was on her lunch break and someone else will be with us shortly. The same staff at the bar then came up and showed us to a table for 6 (there were 2 of us and there were lots of other smaller tables. We were confused, but proceeded to sit down anyway), and strewed menus across half of the table.

Quite some time later, a gentleman came to take our orders, which we swiftly placed. The food arrived in reasonable time and was good.

When the bill came, we noticed that the drinks were still charged to the bill. We disputed this and were very fortunate we used a bank with an app on our phone(please be sure to use this at this bar), as the young lady at the bar rejected that we had already paid for our drinks. After adjusting the bill, we were presented the machine with 12% service charge added to the bill. It was forced gratuity as after the salty service and the dispute, my mind boggles at the audacity of adding ANY gratuitous service charge at all!

I picked The Pint Shop as I prefer to support independent pubs whenever possible. But you’d be better off going to Brown’s. You’d be treated better for...

The Pint Shop is a modern beer bar in the centre of Cambridge, not far from King's College. There's plenty of beers to choose from, albeit all kegged ones. Its sparse décor will to young, affluent punters. And you'll need to be affluent, as the prices are among the highest per pint in town (see blackboard picture). More problematic are the staff, at least on the day I visited. The woman behind the bar was not only arrogant and distanced (as I'm neither young nor particularly affluent), but also squarely ignorant of the product. I asked her a question about one of the beers, and you could see her expression changing from unfriendly to BLANK. If you're selling expensive keg beers, you better be an expert on them. The Scotch egg I had with my beer was excellent though. Freshly made, warm, and the yolks were runny. Kudos for that. Still, at UKP 6.50, not cheap. So: Interesting (kegged) beers at elevated prices, but no staff expertise and the wrong attitude on evidence (at least that day). Maybe I picked the wrong day. Maybe not. Also the pub is insulting to smoking and vaping clientele by just offering a non-smoking beer garden, and a bare, faceless alleyway for them. That's...

Ordered the ploughman's and a porter. Mixed bag...for 17 quid meal got a single piece of bread cut on half and a bit of butter, half an apple and a supermarket mini pork pie which had been cut in half and the other half not put on plate. On the side 5 grams of unchewable full-of-silverskin manky beef too thick and gristly to be bitten by human teeth nor cut with the knife given. It was embarrassing to even try to eat it in public, but I was hungry and wrestled with it as I could, pretty much swallowing it whole and trying not to choke. Also 10 grams of cheese with rind, bit of pickle, bit of onion. This is a uni town which should give good value for the money on a pub lunch. I actually felt cheated on the price and had to wonder what they were thinking when they made this plate as a mains and decided the price. The "hand cut fries" we're none over 1.5" long, soft, and looked like they cleaned the scrap bin to serve me..unless they have hordes of 1.5" potatoes hanging around. I wouldn't go back nor recommend it to visitors. However the #14 Porter was one of the finest ones I've ever tasted. Still wouldn't have paid 17...