The Square Balloon (The Square (Southampton))

Member Name: wxcat

Product:	The Square (Southampton)
Date:	27/08/09 (69 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Empty, Great Venue (must have been once!)

Disadvantages: Expensive, Run Down, Not inviting

The Square (or Square Balloon) is located on Above Bar, up from West Quay, Bargate, and Marlands and before the parks and London Road.

It really is an impressive building on the outside with an impressive frontage that used to be a theatre. On the inside its just as impressive as you have the full height on the old theatre in the main room. The bar is in the centre of the hall with a giant balloon suspended above giving the pub its name! There are theatrical parts all round the edges of the venue.

Most the seating is on the floor level with plenty of tables, there are also tables in elevated boothes around the edges of the hall.

The times I've been in during the week its been really quiet in there, with only usually a few older people in there (regulars I'd assume) and even though there no one at the bar it still takes 5 minutes to get a drink. The one time I've had the food in there was on a weekday during the day. I ordered Lasagne and everyone else had burgers. The burgers were great, large with plenty of sides and chips, the lasagne (the same price!) was about 2 inches square in the middle of a huge bowl with a few sprinklings of herbs on top, very poor for the type of pub menu. Food was served in about 20 minutes, which wasn't bad for a table of five. Prices aren't very cheap, the high end of the High Street prices.

Evening time they generally have bouncers on the door (especially Thurs-Sat or during Students nights), but its still never really that busy. The music they play is pretty mainstream pop music and it still takes an age to get a drink at the bar, as they never seem to have enough staff to serve everyone!

One of my more humorous chats with a bouncer occured at The Square, it was a thursday evening fairly early and we making our way down Above Bar going in a few pubs, we came to The Square and were asked for I.D. so upon showing my Prove It Age Card I was told I could go in tonight but if it was Friday or Saturday he wouldn't let me in, so I had to ask so if he didn't think the ID was genuine and wouldn't let me in at a weekend as I could be underage etc why was he letting me in tonight. Funnily enough that didn't go down well!

In summary, not a place I frequent much these days, and neither do any of my friends. Not the nicest place, bit run down now, takes ages to get a drink, then you need aload of money to afford it means we generally go elsewhere!

Summary: Just walk on by, you'll never remember you missed The Square!