The Griffin

This newly refurbished venue is extremely smart. the rest rooms were also stylish and clean. it is close to the train station and clearly popular with passengers. our food was served promptly. our meals were hot and tasty. we had the hunters chicken and lasagne. to be picky the eton mess sundae could be improved by having less redcurrants and more strawberries and raspberries.

Very nice décor in the griffin. the classic cheeseburger was great! lovely staff. the space inside the loo cubicle was a bit on the neat side but overall, spotless😀

Nice pub near the station, enjoyed a pint and ate tea there while waiting for a train. food was really nice and arrived really quickly. main downside is that despite serving food and showing sport (and all patrons either watching tv or chatting to friends) they are playing nightclub music to an almost empty pub at full volume. strange choice lol.

The griffin has recently been refurbished and looked wonderful both inside and out. being a saturday night, the music was quite loud, so it was not ideal for conversation on this occasion. the staff were helpful. there was a good range of gins (and other spirits) available, along with a reasonable choice of mixers. very generous with the ice, so i made a request for less, which was actioned. as the night progressed, the patrons left more mess that was not cleared, detracting from the new image. this was disappointing. the big letdown was, unfortunately, the toilets, which, although beautiful in decoration and ample in number, were littered and with only one cubicle having any toilet paper. there's an accessible toilet in the step free downstairs of the premises. you do, however, need to request the key from staff at the bar, so if it's busy, you may need to plan for this a little more than normal. i notice they plan to screen the rugby autumn internationals, so i will try a return visit to see if there's any improvement with the facilities. i finally managed to make my return visit (september 2023) for a colleagues farewell. it was difficult to converse due to the volume of the background music. this also made ordering at the bar tricky. the toilets are poorly maintained, and make sure that the toilet roll holders are actually dispensing. there were two identical menus on the table, but on closer inspection, the prices were different! the choice of mixers didn't match what was stocked, so it's easier to ignore the drinks menu and scout out the bar. the food was good and my calamari was superbly cooked. we ordered food at the bar and drinks on the green king app. you will be enticed to use the app by the promise of a voucher for a free drink. however, it took 5 days for my voucher to arrive by email, and the alcohol free options on the offer were not available for our designated driver. the tables are still not cleared. when drinks were delivered to the table by staff, no empties were taken away. we resorted to moving the trays of empties to another table.

Well just popped in as england lioness were playing australia and wow they won nice airy pub eating house friendly helpful staff i had fish freshly cooked chips and peas delicious my companion had grilled gamon egg chips and peas he was very impressed also unfortunately no coffee today a shame 😋 am only here for few hours 😋 hope one day to call again it would be a sin not to mention that this lovely place is completely dog friendly conveniently just up from carlisle railway station 😀