Pitcher and Piano, Bishopsgate

Defining exactly what it is that makes a bar or pub bad can be tricky. One person’s upmarket and cool, is another person’s overpriced and pretentious. One person’s ‘party atmosphere and dancing’ bar is cheesy and laddish to others. However one thing that everyone seems to agree on though is that chain pubs are bad.
This is perhaps unfair. For many years I loved a now departed chain of pubs that worked a pun into their name to wonderful comic effect – come along and have a Firkin good time went the marketing. So clever. Yet the Northerner and many other people I know despised them with venom. Other chains such as Jamie’s, Wetherspoons, Davy’s and the like have all drawn their fair share of praise and scorn in equal measure. Although everyone I know dislikes All Bar One – conservative, repetitive and bland, they are the Coldplay of bars.
Of course it’s easy to knock chain bars. The very concept of replica-fit drinking haunts conjures up images of Starbucks and McDonalds, and sadly many of these chains were the pub equivalents of those two American institutions.
One chain that has been around for as long as I’ve been in this glorious country is the Pitcher and Piano and on Friday we schlepped across to the Bishopsgate branch to for the leaving drinks of the Cricketer. A popular young man is our Cricketer and he attracted a good turnout, all overcoming their concerns at his choice of venue. P&P on Bishopsgate is very much in the ‘party atmosphere and dancing’ camp, with cheap drinks a plenty, loud cheesy music, and boys and girls dressed to the nines for a bit of after work fun and flirting. And it depends on your take on what I’ve just said as to whether it can be declared a good or bad bar, but regardless the place was certainly full of atmosphere as my colleagues and I veered towards the disgraceful side of being drunk. There are no pretty young things or urban hipsters here. There are few if any people over 30, and even less over 40. There is a lot of shouting, and dancing that looks like stumbling, and stumbling that looks like falling. There are big rounds of drinks complete with shots and cheap champagne. Whether any of these ingredients make it a good bar I’m not sure. The Northerner and Heavy D most certainly didn’t think so. But it is a fun bar, and I guess that’s all you can ask for from a chain.