Duke Of Wellington — Restaurant in London

Is this the worst pub in London?

I came in here yesterday at about 10:30pm with about 15 people for my birthday. The place was almost empty apart from us despite it being a Friday night. We were having a nice time, pretty merry and chatting at a decent volume but not too loud by any stretch of the imagination.

Unfortunately, from the moment we got in, we were repeatedly asked to “keep the noise down” and “stop being so loud” as the neighbours can hear us. This is despite the fact that we were indoors 100% of the time and there was no audible noise from the street. We weren’t shouting or screaming, just talking at a regular volume in a large group - the same volume as you would expect to find in any Zone 1 pub on a FRIDAY NIGHT

The requests to keep quiet kept coming more frequently and more aggressively and about an hour later we were asked to leave as the place was closing. We were then literally shouted by the members of staff in question to move away from the pub when we were standing across the street ordering taxis.

We found staff were some of the rudest I’ve ever encountered in a pub and although they were clearly happy to take our money for drinks they didn’t want us to enjoy ourselves at all. If we weren’t there, there would have been about 3 customers so I literally don’t understand why?!

A lot of my group are LGBTQ+, potentially there is some homophobia at play from the female staff in question? I can see from other reviews that there are issues with staff similar to mine

Avoid - hopefully this place will go bankrupt and they can reopen it as a library or care home for older people as that’s how it’s being run currently

(I never leave reviews but I was so shocked by this place I felt I had to. Zero...

A pub I love, great selection of beers and normally a nice atmosphere, yet this evening that was spoilt by a member of staff. She announced to the whole pub that if people “cheered the football (that was on tv)” she would turn it off. As it’s a big international championship there are many patrons watching the football. Obviously there were ironic cheers to this utterly stupid announcement, and to most peoples amazement, the tvs were turned off. This was celebrated by two members of staff with one (the original announcement girl) sticking her fingers up at all her customers. The same member of staff then put some loud R&B music on. This was obviously not approved by most customers who left a nice busy pub. With only a handful of us paying customers left and the only person dancing and having a good time being a member of staff, we ourselves left. Now in The Bell, a lovely pub, nice selection of beers, great atmosphere, football is on, and so far we are allowed to cheer the football as much or as little as we like.

A lovely pub ruined by one member of staff.

In response to your reply: Sadly this was not the case, I believe your staff telling you lies. There was no rowdiness, no excessive noise, no abuse (that I saw) apart from the very unprofessional member of bar staff that proudly walked the length of the bar sticking her middle finger up to...

This pub is happy to take everyones money to show the Euros on a big screen outside but will threaten to turn it off if people cheer on their country - bowing to pressure from nimby neighbours who can’t handle noise at 7.30 on a Friday evening in Shoreditch. Don’t come here to watch the football - there are plenty of other pubs in the area that encourage, not restrict atmosphere.

Edit: since Google doesn’t allow responding to comments, I would like to add some additional context:

The “rude and aggressive behaviour” I witnessed was a group of female Spanish fans celebrating loudly when their team scored a winning goal in the 119th minute, as is to be expected. The entire garden was then told the game would be turned off if any subsequent noise was made, because neighbours had made a complaint to the pubs head office. As for the pub being in a residential area, I’d invite readers to look at the location just off Commercial Street, adjacent to Spitalfields market and 10 mins walk from the City and make up their own mind on this point. This area has been a famous hotspot for entertainment and nightlife in London since the 16th century. If the pub does not want noise in their beer garden they should not take advantage of the additional income that showing live football on a big...