SSP have been crowing about this “concept bar” that opened last week at Crewe railway station, so this caught my attention enough to make a little visit. All seemed well as it also has 100% positive reviews on Google, albeit only one person has reviewed it. I was wondering whether it would be like the railway station bars at Sheffield or Chesterfield, excellent locations which are both on-trend and also in the Good Beer Guide. I popped in, and SSP might be best to pretend that this location doesn’t exist as there is nothing on-trend or concept driven about this, nor indeed, is there anything traditional. There were four keg beers, one of which is Madri, so that’s all that needs saying there. There are no craft beers, no craft cans, no real ales and indeed, it’s not clear that there’s anything of interest to justify this “concept bar” tag they’ve given themselves. I’m slightly surprised they had managed to get the one customer that they had. If they wanted to deliver a lager driven bar, then go for it, but perhaps best not to pretend it’s something it’s not.
As for the sole review, I started to get suspicious that this was genuine and after checking it’s from Kathryn Kerr, who happens to be, well, a general manager of SSP in the area. The local CAMRA branch have noted its presence with no excitement at all, so surprised and delighted by this “concept bar” that their comments are limited to:
“Did have real ale in the past, but no longer.”
It’ll likely be rebranded by SSP in around two years, but what a wasted opportunity as a micro-pub would have worked brilliantly here. Do railway stations really need to have to rely on SSP so much? Nice Christmas tree though.
