Another Day In Pub Paradise…Bardon

Another day of pub blogging and another day in pub paradise (commonly known as the LE67 postcode).

23 boozers and clubs notched up in this area so far means that roughly 1 in every 11 pubs I have a drink is in this region. It’s highlighted below, albeit not very accurately and unfortunately the red markers aren’t the amount of pubs in this postcode.

However, Alan would happily chalk up 23 or 24 in just one day of blogging so I am a mere amateur by comparison as it’s taken me the best part of 12 months to hit this amount.

255 – The Birch Tree LE67 1TD is the latest boozer and it’s part of the Everards stable so, for that reason alone, likely to annoy Richard on many levels.

Situated on the outskirts of Bardon – where they are building a huge amount of houses – this is a big old roadside pub with two distinct routes when you walk in.

Right is for the food and left is for the bar so I was always going to go to the left… (Is it always left for bar or is it more often right?  I’ll need to take more notice in the future)

I’m not sure how many locals use this place as it’s a bit of a walk from the main raft of houses but there don’t appear to be any other options in Bardon so its either this or a night on the tiles in Whitwick, Coalville or Ibstock.

A Wednesday afternoon at around 3.30 isn’t necessarily going to be busy and it wasn’t with just one other solitary punter who was submerged in his mobile phone.

However, the landlady/barmaid was incredibly friendly and as well as serving a very good pint of Tiger (Everards) she also produced some ‘make your own tiger’ beermats where you can win a prize of a month’s supply of beer (see opening pictures).

(proper seating)

A smart looking place that is clearly well kept and I would imagine relies on food for a fair portion of its trade…

(that was then)

(this is now)

..but still has a local following and a darts team in the uber competitive Johnny Barker North Leicestershire Darts League.

However, they are only one point and two places above the bottom Team Thornton WMC and The Railway in Ashby’s ‘B’ team so the need for new blood is crucial!

(I didn’t see the ‘back’ beer garden…)

A solid local pub that Everards seem to specialise in throughout the East Midlands and is doing a lot of things right that will hopefully attract in a few more punters.