The Joiners Arms — Restaurant in London

🚇 Denmark Hill 🍺 £6.00 Pravha

This pub is located in the heart of Camberwell, just south of Camberwell Green. The nearest station is Denmark Hill, served by Thameslink and the Windrush Line.

The Joiners Arms, as it was originally known, dates back to 1820. It earned its name from the journeymen joiners who toiled on the grand mansions rising up the hillside, gathering here on Saturdays to collect their wages and share a well-earned pint.

This traditionally decorated two-bar pub retains many original features. The front bar has a curved servery with a carved, etched-glass bar back. Décor includes a boarded floor, interwar Vitrolite ceiling, frosted-glass partition, and rustic furniture. The highlight is the striking pictorial tiling of the Joiners’ & Ceilers’ Company, a historic City livery guild.

The bar at the rear is slightly larger, less traditional than the front bar, and features a good-sized stage which Florence + The Machine once graced. There are also some lovely outdoor spaces, including an intimate patio beer garden, a marquee to the side and a roof terrace which was a nice surprise.

The beer lineup offers a good selection of well-known brands, local London brews, and cask ales. I kept it simple and ordered a Pravha—my pint hit the spot, and the price was about average. The pub’s food menu features British classics, pizza, and hearty Sunday roasts.

I arrived just after 4 p.m. on FA Cup Final day in May. The pub was fairly busy throughout, with most punters keeping an eye on the huge screens in both bars. The atmosphere was laid-back and local, making it easy to settle in. The service was great—the team on duty were welcoming and friendly. I pulled up a stool in the front bar to watch the first half of the match.

Lots of positives to report from this Camberwell hostelry. I loved the front bar, with the tiled wall being the standout feature. There’s a good choice of beers, friendly locals and staff, and plenty of different spaces to enjoy a pint. Most definitely worth a visit if you’re in or around the area.

Follow @thejoinersarmscamberwell for what’s on and updates.

📅 17th May 2025

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I'm a regular customer who usually goes to this pub to watch football mach with friends, today I came to watch a football match again but I went with a muslim friend to talk and watch football, I was consuming and buying drinks while talking to my friend who doesn't consume alcohol and suddenly the staff of this pub who I was familiar with started telling my friend to leave the pub if he's not buying or consuming anything which I found very pushy, then I said to the staff I was going to buy a coke for him bu the staff keep insisting my friend leave because he didn't consume anything for a while and he mentioned that he paid for watching football and that we should consume for watching football because it was not for free so then I realised that there were more people who didn't consume in the pub and there were chilling with their friends as well, but the only difference is was that they were all white and myself was black and am Latino which I found very unfair, I was never treated like this before, the made my friend feel so umcomfortable for not consuming so if you don't want to be treated in a unfair way by your skin colour or your religion don't come to this pub, I prefer to go to a different place better than treated this way in front of other customers, by the way, the staff that were treating us bad had an indian and chinese look who are always there, and I wanted to stand out for my friend because of the way he was treated they say they were going to ban me, really bad experience, first and last time in this place, they should change these two guys from this place, there are other people who can work in this pub better...

Edited: changed to 1* after owner reply. What an awful way to handle a customer complaint. No accountability but instead you tell paying customers to have more gratitude and patience towards rude staff and gaslight by saying the table service hidden charge is obvious. As said below, move the condiments for the night. Problem solved. Having worked in a bar, I do understand and hence I would only complain if I felt it could have been avoided.

Booked a table for the world cup, understandably very busy. Our table was near the bar and some of us had to stand which was fine but because they keep the condiments and cutlery nearby, staff kept having to push through us. Again, this would have been fine if staff weren't getting increasingly annoyed and attitudey with us. It's not our fault, we had to stand somewhere and the pub was very busy. If anything it's the staffs fault for not sorting out appropriate seating arrangements and overfilling the pub. I don't understand why they didn't just clear a space and stick the cutlery and ketchup behind the bar for one evening. Problem solved. Instead they made everyone's lives hard... In short, I was stuck in a corner, being continuously interrupted by staff and then blamed like I was an inconvenience to them whilst they take my money for food and drink 👍... They also add service charge to drinks orders which is automatically ticked and not very clear so you can easily end up paying 60p more a pint. Great way to treat...