A bar at Vinegar Yard, the buzzing street-food and flea-market yard by London Bridge – its small review count unproven, its cheerfully-named yard a local favourite
The Courtyard Bar at Vinegar Yard carries a 4.6 across a tiny count of just ten reviews. The Prat’s numbers desk states the obvious at once: ten reviews cannot be judged, and we make no claim on that figure. But Vinegar Yard itself is a genuine local favourite, and there the Prat has plenty to say.
By London Bridge
The Courtyard Bar sits at Vinegar Yard, just by London Bridge station, on the south-bank side. Proper Bermondsey-and-Southwark territory, no disclaimer needed.
Vinegar Yard
Vinegar Yard is one of the buzzing modern gathering-places by London Bridge – a lively open yard of street-food traders, bars, a weekend flea market and quirky art, a cheerfully chaotic hub of eating, drinking and browsing in the shadow of the Shard. It is exactly the kind of characterful, informal, all-in-one spot that has come to define the modern London Bridge scene: come for the street food, stay for the drinks, poke about the flea market, all in one open yard. The Courtyard Bar is the drinking heart of it – the bar around which the whole convivial yard revolves.
The name of the yard
The Prat’s naming desk enjoys the honest, faintly industrial ring of “Vinegar Yard.” It has the sound of a genuine old London working yard – the kind of plain, functional, trade-derived name that the city’s old streets are full of, recalling perhaps a vinegar-maker or a brewing yard of the past. And “Courtyard” names the open yard itself – the courtyard, the gathering-space, the open heart around which the traders and drinkers cluster. Together they name the thing plainly: a bar, in a courtyard, at Vinegar Yard – honest and rooted, the Prat’s favourite sort of name.
The unjudgeable sample
The Prat holds to its rule: ten reviews is far too small a sample to judge the bar’s quality, and we make no claim on that figure. But the Courtyard Bar’s home, Vinegar Yard, is a genuine and popular local fixture, and the bar sits at the heart of it. On the strength of its lively, characterful setting – the street food, the flea market, the buzzing open yard by London Bridge – it earns its place in the record, the verdict left to a larger crowd.
Verdict
With just ten reviews, the Courtyard Bar carries far too small a sample for the Prat to judge, and we say so plainly. But it sits at the heart of Vinegar Yard – the buzzing street-food, flea-market and drinking yard by London Bridge – an honestly-named courtyard bar in one of the district’s liveliest modern gathering-places.
Go and form your own view, the sample being far too small for ours, and dive into the cheerful chaos of Vinegar Yard. Street food, a flea market, quirky art and a courtyard bar in the shadow of the Shard – it is the modern London Bridge scene distilled into one buzzing yard.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
Parece escrito por alguien que toma notas minuciosas sobre cosas en las que no debería pensar tanto.