Jolly Farmers, Enfield

Since my previous review The Jolly Farmers has undergone an extensive refurbishment by McMullens. And Saturday evening saw my first visit to the Jolly Farmers since it reopened in July after its major makeover. Once again Mac’s have brought in the design team who were trained by following ‘footballers wives’ around Ikea, as it takes a special touch to come up with animal skin print wallpaper, hanging wine bottles for lampshades and settee seating with no backs that are practically impossible to sit comfortably on. Now primarily a restaurant with the majority of the pub laid out for dining tables with a small bar lounge area at the front section. So it now has the feel of being an upmarket Harvester and is more aligned to families for dinner than for vertical drinking. However the positives are, a large outside decking area for alfresco drinking, although you will have to share this with the smokers, the four McMullen beers are retained and it still remains one of the few places you can reliably find the AK Mild, and if you do go for the food the menu is reasonably priced and of decent quality, if the ones we tried are to go by.

Jolly Farmers pages at the McMullens site - www.mcmullens.co.uk

Jolly Farmers pages at the McMullens site - www.mcmullens.co.uk

Randomness Guide to London - Jolly Farmers entry

Randomness Guide to London - Jolly Farmers entry

The Jolly Farmers is an expansive pub situated in the valley which houses Salmon's Brook on the border of Enfield and Oakwood, in an area known locally as Frog's Bottom, a fact that used to be shown by a name plaque on the frame of the pub sign. I used to live opposite the Farmers a few moons back and although not anything special in the way of décor or beer choice (being a Mcmullens tied house) , always found it a comfortable and functional pub which did the basic things right and the traditional pub grub was usually OK. Had the opportunity to pop in again the other night on route to The Ridgeway. It's been redecorated since the last time I was in and although the décor is more modern and cleaner than the old lived-in flock wallpaper, I actually didn't think it was such as bland a job as done in The Robin Hood at Botany Bay. Perhaps that's because there were quite a few in on the Friday night and as there are still the separate dining and drinking areas, it still retains a bit of the traditional pub atmosphere. Standard McMullen fair and the AK was perfectly fine. And there are bench tables outside and this pub does make an effort with the floral displays in summer.