The Dog and Bull, Surrey Street, the final frontier: our intrepid reviewer last night boldly went where no man, or at least not very many, has gone before

Our dogged culture correspondent KEN TOWL spent the night, and nearly six quid a pint, checking out the refurbed Dog and Bull, with its ‘banging’ tunes, new high security and its not-so-new beer garden.
Photos: SHIRLEY BIGGIN-HILL

Party venue: £6 a pint and loads of marketing material

When a dog has too many teething troubles, it doesn’t bite, and Surrey Street’s new dog in town has plenty of teething trouble. The Dog and Bull, renamed The Dog, had what its pubco owners described as a soft opening yesterday and I went along to check it out. Who doesn’t love a soft opening, after all?

Sashaying past the conspicuous security staff who were guarding the alley that leads to the place formally known as the beer garden (now “The Wilderness©”), I found myself competing with a buzzing post-work Friday pub crowd for the attention of the bar staff at the small island bar at the front of the pub.

The five (five!) staff behind the bar were struggling, avoiding eye contact with customers, themselves queuing to use the two tills with which they appeared to be unfamiliar. The traditional beer pumps that used to adorn the front of the bar as you enter off Surrey Street market have been relegated – as if hidden – to the back of the bar. Instead, there are serried ranks of brightly coloured alternative alcohols, many of them carrying the branding of Laine’s.

When I finally managed to get served (£5.75 for a pint of Sharp’s Atlantic – one of just two cask ale on offer – and £6.60 for Inch’s cider), we moved to a table in the mostly empty interior of the pub and looked out into The Wilderness© through the back window.

It all looked very similar to the beer garden of The Dog and Bull.

There were differences, though. The burger outlet was closed now, and a handful of the heated booths had been replaced by what looked like miniature Swiss chalets. Apart from the lack of food and the Alpine architecture, the main difference was a paint job, a vaguely psychedelic camouflage effect designed, no doubt, to insinuate a “clubby” vibe into the space.

Laine’s lines: the cask ale pumps in Croydon’s oldest pub have been hidden at the back of the bar, replaced by these colourful drinks offering ‘zest’, ‘mosaic’ and ‘mango’

Inside, the clubby vibe was characterised mostly by too-loud music that made it difficult to have a conversation. No wonder no one was sitting there.

Using sign language over the noise, my mate Shirley suggested that we venture down the back stairs and out into The Wilderness©, where all the atmosphere seemed to be and where we might be able to actually hear each other speak.

Outside, and past the hut that functions as a second bar with a more limited drinks selection, we found free seats at a table not too far from one genuine change to the centuries-old pub, the “DJ booth”. The DJ was playing a genre of music best described as background, which was inoffensive and, after a while, barely discernible behind the hubbub of conversation.

Looks familiar: the back room has had its comfy armchairs replaced and some fairy lights added, but is otherwise seemingly little changed

The DJ, or rather the music that he played, has been a bit of a bone of contention for this particular Dog. According to their new website, Laine, the owners of the pub, were offering the possibility of having a DJ playing music in The Wilderness© late into the night, which they wanted to keep open up to 2am and 3am on Saturdays and Sundays.

The website claims that they aspire to be “a highly relevant, positive and respectful contributor to the richness of the culture of the areas in which we operate”, but they had not consulted with any of the residents of the flats which overlook the DJ booth, nor bothered with the niceties of a legally required licensing application for the later openings.

Since Inside Croydon reported this earlier in the week, the proposed opening times have been changed.

More routine pub opening hours are now being advertised on the website and on the flyers that adorned every table: there would be an “eclectic mix of summer sounds” from 5pm to 10pm on Fridays and from 2pm to 10pm on Saturdays. This dog might bark, but it wouldn’t bite. For now, at least.

No numbers: despite spending £125,000 and five weeks on a refurb, no one has put any numbers on the tables

We wondered how the pub would cope next weekend. On Saturday, every pub television in Croydon will be tuned to the FA Cup final to see Crystal Palace play one of the most important matches of their proud history. Shirley looked up at the supposedly “big screen” above The Wilderness©. It is pitifully small.

“It’s pitifully small,” said Shirley. We realised that we were attracting the attention of a man at the end of our table, so we lowered our voices a little. Shirley pointed out that there were QR codes on each table next to signs which invited us to order from our tables. Yes, I thought, you’ll need that next week – no one is going to want to wait 10 minutes to get served at the bar while the match is on.

“Let’s get another drink,” said Shirley, and scanned the code. A frame popped up saying “Welcome to The Dog”, inviting us to “Order to table”. And it asked: “What is your table number?”

At this point, the Interested Party at the end of the table leaned in and said, “It’s not working. It will be in the next week or two.”

Quietened Wilderness©: after the post-work crowd had gone, The Dog and Bull’s beer garden, which is overlooked by residential flats, was much quieter. Conspicuous security ensured customers went inside at 11pm

“Do you work here?” asked Shirley, never one for subtlety.

“Yes,” replied the Interested Party, “I do. What do you do?” Which seemed a bit rude. Or unnecessarily suspicious. Had the staff been briefed to expect an Inside Croydon “secret shopper”?

Shirley chose not to elucidate. She lived in Sutton now, she said, and spoke, instead, of times long ago when she had worked for Croydon Council and had often come for a drink in the beer garden of The Dog and Bull after work. “It’s changed,” she said.

The Interested Party nodded and said, “You have to change with the times. Change is good.”

We fancied a change, because change is good, so we popped down to the under-new-management Royal Standard for quick service, pints for less than £5 and a leisurely chat under the Flyover before circling back via a stop at the Green Dragon for quick service and a beguiling choice of beers.

We wanted to see how the pub formerly known The Dog and Bull would wind down, to see how softly a soft opening would close.

By 9.50pm, most of the post-work crowd had moved on and The Wilderness© was somewhat cooler than it had been (not in a good way), so we occupied one of the heated booths and waited for the DJ to sign off. It all went like clockwork from there.

They’re going to need a bigger screen: it’s pitifully small

At 10pm, the music stopped. At 11pm, we were approached by one of the two security guys and politely but firmly told to go inside because The Wilderness© was closed.

We found a table inside and got another drink, easily enough this time. There weren’t too many customers, and the staff seemed to have got the hang of the new tills by this time.

At midnight, the other security guy told us politely but firmly to leave, and we spilled compliantly into Surrey Street in the first minute of Saturday morning.

It remains to be seen whether the pub formerly known as The Dog and Bull gets its table-ordering system sorted out ahead of the cup final. To adapt a phrase from the film Jaws, they are going to need a bigger screen.

A DJ playing inoffensive tunes at 4.30pm isn’t going to cut it, I suspect.

In the longer term, we have yet to see whether Laine’s aspirations to keep their neighbours awake until 3am every Sunday morning have been shelved permanently, or just put on a back burner.

Let’s hope councillors on the licensing committee are not afraid to keep this Dog on a tight leash.

Read more: What a load of old Bull! Chain to rename Croydon’s oldest pub
Read more: Dog and Bull pub’s new owners accused of ‘cultural vandalism’

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