Mind the Gap, Broadstairs

Micropub close to the station. Two levels – a grey and relatively dull downstairs room with some chunky rail ephemera (dig the old Victorian-style railway station awnings that run around most of the room) whilst the bar is at the rear with more RATtage, including a whole wall covered in old tickets (which is actually a pretty impressive bit of décor) plus a length of mainline rail used as a foot rest. A live band was on the go with interminable bluegrass noodling, garnering a receptive audience. Three cask on stillage and eight ciders; my Gadds Dog Bolter was excellent (NBSS 4). This is another local micro which didn’t make the GBG24 cut, perhaps surprisingly. It’s well-worth a look-in in my opinion.

Just a short way down the road from Broadstairs station, this is a split-level micropub with, as the name suggests, a railway theme. You enter into a good-sized front room with scuffed floorboards and large feature windows from its days as a shop. There’s a fair amount of seating arranged around the room in the form of chairs, low stools and a couple of compact sofas, plus some upturned barrels with the ‘Mind the Gap’ sign painted on top surrounded by high stools. The railway theme is evident pretty much wherever you look, whether that be towards the large steam engine image, the huge collection of old rail tickets behind a large Perspex screen, the old Victorian-style railway station awnings that run around most of the room or the suitcase rack and old railway signs that can be found over to the left side of the room. There’s also a very large National Rail logo used as partitioning from the upper bar area to the rear of the room, hidden in part by a large number of hops woven through it. The upper section is much more basic and compact, with the servery along the rear wall next to a set of helpful beer boards. Seating back here is limited to bar stools and the walls are almost entirely covered in old rail tickets, which creates quite a nice effect and is a good alternative to the usual pump clip collections. Other points of interest include a few pavement-side tables, a ‘gap’ that you pass over on entering the pub, filled with items ‘lost’ by commuters/drinkers, and a sign in the toilets that reminds you not to “use the toilet when the train is in the station”! The cask ales are all racked up on the bar back and there were four available on this visit – Iron Pier Castle Iron Stout and Rosherville Red, Gadds War Horse and Mighty Oak Captain Bob – along with an extensive cider selection. My pint of the Captain Bob was in good shape and the barman seemed nice enough, without really bothering to engage in any chat. I really liked this place and thought the quirky décor and plentiful seating options made it a nice place to settle down for a longer session. The beer seems to be kept well and there’s plenty to explore, which will reward return visits. In a town full of fine micropubs, this is another that shouldn’t be missed from any crawl.