The Greedy Banker — Restaurant in England

Well, what can I say. We came for dinner with friends. It was a quiet day, so the atmosphere was very subdued but live football helped. Our friends were already apprehensive when we arrived, as the waitress had already announced to everyone that she had quit and was leaving soon. It showed. More time on the phone which I've not seen in many places, than interested in her current job. Clearly distracted as gave us wrong drink twice and when asked for advice on beers they had no idea. Very unusual for a pub not knowing their beers. Anyway, perhaps that explains their leaving. We didn't let it impact us too much and ordered our food, which was a combination of themed burgers and dogs. These were a real treat along with delicious loaded fries. Service was friendly by the manager and efficient. No check if the food was ok however thats great as we were clearly enjoying it. Well done!

We often go out once a month as time without kids, and this is often precious. We noticed it was quiet, and staff began the closing up processes, i.e., hoovering, talking about closing up, stacking chairs early, and generally making us feel that we needed to go. Well before their advertised closing time of 11pm. We were finishing our purchased drinks. The manager kindly informed us they were closing bar taps off and if we wanted any drinks. Waitress clearly wanted to leave and started to mop up to the next table and as it approached their appeared revised daily closing time of 10pm.

Waitress indicated quite sternly that we needed to leave. Not once had they indicated the closing time, but it was just before 10 pm, so we anticipated it was late enough to leave. Fortunately, the Cricketers over the road were open and more than happy to allow us to purchase another drink, which we had and walked into friendly and warm atmosphere venue with quiz night ongoing. It was a lovely evening despite the fawlty towers demonstration to entice us to leave. Thank you. Will return just for the food as was wonderful. Hopefully the waitress would have long departed and the next person has some charisma and friendliness of being the front of house for the venue. Go just for the food alone as...

I've heard nothing but great things about The Banker's sister pub, The Dead Pigeon, so when they opened a venue closer to home a visit was on the cards.

We decided to visit on my birthday. To celebrate I ordered the Bavette Steak Burger, accompanied by Philly Cheesesteak Fries. It's certainly priced at the higher end of the burger market but it's worth it! The mushroom gravy that came with the burger was beautiful and went well with the steak and onions in the burger.

My wife ordered the Buffalo Chicken Burger with BBQ Loaded Fries. Equally delicious and filling. For those with smaller appetites, one burger and fries would feed two people.

My midweek birthday treat meant that I could sample a few of their taps. They had 12 to choose from, so I started with a half pint of Amundsen's 9th Birthday Cake stout, with (apparently) cheese and waffles and raspberry jam. I always take the descriptions as a bit of poetic license, but the drink did deliver. Full bodied, with sweet notes, it hit the spot. However, at 12% I'm glad I didn't go for the full pint as a starter!

I followed up with a more mellow but equally delicious pint of Laugh At The Odds from Verdant. At 6.5% it was a good lunchtime choice, and a great accompaniment to the food.

My "pudding" was another full glass, this time of Vibrant Brewery's sour, I Appear Missing. Full of fruit flavours and tart enough to make you pull in your cheeks, it hit the spot after some big flavours.

Before leaving, I couldn't help myself to a cheeky can to take away. Their fridges were full of delights that you can't buy in your typical supermarket beer aisle, and without a decent bottle shop near home I wasn't going to turn down an opportunity to take one with me. I opted for a can of the mythical Puttty, Verdants triple IPA. I missed the draught, so this was a pretty good...

I quite like the Dead Pigeon, so wanted to give this second venue from the same team a go - the venue used to be Barclays Bank, opposite the Cricketers pub in Rainham.

Inside, I think I was expecting something a bit more quaint and pub-like, but the ambience was very much more like office space, all of which had been painted black and then had tables and a bar added - I suppose it did use to be a bank, so this makes sense, but was a surprise. There are lots of large screens in here showing sport. Good atmosphere overall. It works.

The bar offers a good choice of beers - had a Hacker-Pschorr, which I haven’t had anywhere since I drank it in Bristol in 2019 (aboard Spyglass) - a decent choice.

The food is the star of the show here - big burgers, loaded fries, onion rings, chicken tenders and the like. Very instagramable and extremely scrannable. We ordered a sharing platter - two lots of tenders, onion rings and loaded fries. This was loads of food, all of it gorgeous - one lot of tenders was garlic and the other buffalo.

Decent chips as well and gorgeous onion rings. I love onion rings. Big and fluffy, but not too fluffy. Just right.

The tenders were big, juicy and moist. I think next time I go I’ll try plain tenders and have a couple of the hot dips - the gravy and hot naga cheese were absolutely superb, but they didn’t go that well with buffalo.. 😃

The burgers here look good - they do a tray where you have tenders, burgers, chips etc, but I think that’s too much for me. I’ll come back and try and burger though.

Overall, good place for a meal - definitely recommended and worthy. You won’t get a better burger or tenders in Rainham, that’s...