No. 76 The Amphitheatre bar

Visited on 18/8/11. The tone was set when we walked into this place and a fat slavering Ted Baker clad dickhead insisted on shaking each of us by the hand whilst babbling something incoherent. Apart from the bar staff, he was the only person there. Fortunately he then left, leaving behind a row of shot glasses, each containing a different coloured fluorescent milky residue. Not only did this place not sell real ale, it didn’t even sell keg bitter, so for the first time in about fifteen years I drank a pint of Carlsberg. It tasted of absolutely nothing whatsoever. It’d be possible to dilute the stuff by about 50% with soda water and nobody would be able to tell the difference. I’m not suggesting this place does, mind. It’s real raison d’etre is to pedal strong liquor sweetened with energy drinks and syrups in the form of shots and cocktails to kids. It’s the sale of alcohol, purely as a drug. And while traditional pubs continue to close, these kind of establishments continue to thrive. And the results of their cynical marketing are evident on our streets and in our casualty wards every weekend. People are handing over money in these places to be poisoned, and no better illustration of this exists than in the state of the gents bogs on this particular night. The first cubicle was festooned from floor to ceiling with projectile vomit. Dripping. No carrots. The staff knew about it as well because there was a mop and bucket stationed outside the door, although no attempt had been made to clean it up. Normally, I’d sympathise, but not on this occasion. For some reason, the pouting harridan behind the bar had treated us with contempt from the minute we walked in. I reckon ‘the Dee Miller’ (No. 71) can now stand at ease. If there’s a worse pub in Chester than this place, I’ll be astonished.