Griffin in Carlisle

Decent pub, food was very tasty and loved the decor. Very echoey so having conversations was difficult at some points especially when the music was turned up. Great selection of food and drinks.

Evening meal, excellent food and service.

Nice bar just by railway station, food available , didn't eat this time but last time food was OK, simular to a spoons type of menu good bar overall.

My wife and I used to frequent the Griffin along with friends several years ago but stopped going during Covid. Yesterday we returned and realised a breath of fresh air now permeats the place with new and dynamic deputy managers (take a bow, Josh) who are on a mission to provide excellent service and food. Well they certainly succeded yesterday. We will be back!

Easter Saturday I had gammon steak. It was to draw and all the staff were fantastic as well. I returned later that evening for a cup of tea as I’m not a heavy drinker and the barman (blazer white shirt) let me have it on his tab. Massive thank you to you and I’ve given you a shout out on my YouTube channel GWR Trains. Next time I’m making content in Carlisle my evening meal is definitely sorted.

Place has a warm atmosphere , our server (josh) was amazing I have celiacs disease and he was so accommodating and made things easy for me to order and was so good with my dog athena ! Definitely would be back for a pint. Food was average but they are the first place to get the temperature on my steak perfect first try ( rare) in Carlisle so theres that!

Excellent service from Conrad and Josh Thanks you

Great place was in yesterday for Good Friday it was pretty busy but the staff was amazing and the general manager was very helpful. We will be back

Absolutely gorgeous all day breakfast.. Colin’s customer service brilliant thank you Will be back :)

Great experience and very fast and lovely service

Absolutely brilliant service and friendly atmosphere from our host Josh. Clean, friendly and good music. Definitely recommend 3

Fantastic service. Great atmosphere Josh was amazing

Dropped in for a quick pint between trains, very quiet, same great service. The friendliness of the staff more than made up for the scarcity of customers. We'll keep coming back!

Lush pub, great service and drinks and the place is really nicely done out.

Food was lovely and Jace was very friendly and helpful, I would definitely come back again,

Attractive pub close to the Station and the Historic heart of Carlisle, didn't eat there so can't comment on the food but the service at the bar was good, plenty of seating and power sockets to charge your phone. Gents loo has quirky industrial looking theme, but the taps, spray water everywhere all over you, and the cubicle doors had broken locks.

Drink was pricey & not the nicest pint i have had

Clean, Tidy, Friendly Staff, Thanks for Good Quality Coffe

Soaking in the cracking atmosphere at a friendly local pub! Hens and stags, have a blast here but remember, no crossing on the stairs and STAY safe!!!

Very clean and warm, situated in the city centre. Friendly staff. Good pub food.served quite quickly on Warm plates!

Excellent service, booked a Six nations rugby package and got a perfect view of the screen! Staff are amazing, very efficient! Huge range of beers, very clean! Will be back!!

Thank you to the team for a great night. Top service and great food. Will be coming back soon

Great service, great atmosphere. Be sure to bring the girls down next time

Came down tonight with my wife for a couple, ended up getting a bite to eat and wow. Absolutely amazing service and quality all round. Top shout

Had such a great time tonight, staff, service and food 10/10. Will definitely be coming back!

Came down in the afternoon today for a couple, ended up staying longer than expected. What a great atmosphere, the team was brilliant, service was top tier and food was phenomenal. Most definitely will be coming back next weekend 😀

Lovely food and great prices. Look forward to our next visit.

Nice chilled atmosphere, more than decent prices for food and drinks, the staff where nice and polite. Definitely be going there again in the future. Highly recommend!

Great clean pub, great food and drinks

Nice place, great atmosphere and delicious food 😋

1st time eating in the Griffin. I ordered pulled beef Tacos for Starters. 2x Taco's very well made and defo have again. Although I might try some of the other flavours. For mains I had lasagne 2x fresh made garlic bread, huge amount of salad that was fresh Avery tasty. Now the lasagne, woah mate just beautiful, made me want to order another one. Chips came with it separate bowl so it may have been side. They were the best chips I've had since arriving back in the UK. THEY WERE CRISPY. And could stand up on their own, 1st thing I grabbed was a good chip. I really enjoyed my meal and will go back again with friends. In fact I have already invited a mate to eat in there sometime. Top job staff friendly and helpful. 5 stars from me. Aussie Mark

come to the griffin with my husband and my child and i can tell you guys now please don't go because the whole attitude and the way these staff members talk is ridicules and should be sacked there and then this is happen 2x now. even to the point where my food was cold and so was my child's my husband got a stake and it come out not how he wanted he wanted very well done and it come out still pink and he did not want to eat it but we come out for a meal before we visited family members. this place needs someone higher up to come in undercover or something because there is no way this

Fantastic place, lovely food reasonably priced, nice atmosphere and lovely staff. Would highly recommend

Blue cheese burger.... no blue cheese. Steak in the steak ciabatta tasted like old meat. One particular member of staff very rude, rolling her eyes whenever we asked something like we were asking her to work on her day off or something. Both front of house and the chefs very unaware of basic allergen information. I was provided with their ipad with all allergen info on it. Then the rude waitress and the chef both questioned our choices even though we ordered using the allergen information provided on the ipad. Terrible choice of venue for lunch! Would not recommend!

2 items on menu were not available.Urinals in gents were dirty all around the rim. Only one real ale available out of two.

Had the katsu curry it was amazing!

Great pub.Friendly team, and love that it's dog friendly 🐕 can't wait to visit on my next trip to Carlisle

We only had drinks! But it's a nice, welcoming place

Good food at the right price and wonderful draught Guiness !

Great pint of Guinness, extra cold, young lass serving with the broken arm very friendly and went out of her way to chat about her accident. Only came to Carlisle for a day out, definitely be coming back here again.

Visit for beer only seems a friendly place and a good selection of drinks

Visited on Saturday 13th Jan at around 4pm. The pub was fairly busy with a good atmosphere. The staff were friendly and despite being busy the food arrived quickly. We had the chicken & ham pie with mash and steak & ale pie with chips. I ordered an extra side of mash, which I'd recommend doing as the portion served with the pie is a bit on the small side. The food was really tasty. The pastry on the pies was really nice and crisp, and they weren't lacking in filling. We would definitely return again when next in the area.

Lovely atmosphere in The Griffin, the food was very tasty & hot & reasonably priced.

This was just what we needed. Came in on a Monday night, it was bright and airy with nice furnishings. It wasn't loud and was a great place to have a drink and a light bite with a little one after a long train ride. Staff were polite and helpful and it was clean and warm.

Dog friendly, reasonably priced and lovely team

Came here with my mate and had a smashing time, the lady with the cast on the bar was an an absolute star, the friendliest service

But slow on device but a great atmosphere and a good place to grab a last drink before heading for the train .

Lovely food lovely bar staff apart from the miserable looking cow who battered her kid wouldn’t recommend being served by her (Kimberlee)

I regularly stop off in the Griffin when travelling back to the Scottish Borders and it is always a great place to hang out. Really nice food, the staff are great and I always enjoy having a pint here, when doing some work on my laptop.

This was one of the busiest days, but the staff were excellent. They've been let down by staff and management but still pulled it out the bag and made us feel special. Massive shout out to Violet, she was fantastic! Needs a promotion! All staff working there arses off! Well done

The service, was excellent especially from violet, was so accommodating thank you so much

Would not recommend to anyone. The food was average which wasn’t the problem . The problem was the customer service was absolutely rude and disgusting by the two female staff behind the bar . I’m guessing it was the manager but she was swearing in front of customers , complaining about having a bad day and overall rude personality. When I asked for a cup of tea she rudely shouted “ We are not serving hot drinks because it’s busy “ and then proceeded to rudely shake her head looking disgusted . If I had to give a positive I’d be struggling to find one .

Had a great nite in here friendly staff cnt wait to return

Huge thanks to the amazing team at the Griffin on Sunday! Excellent service keeping a v busy pub running smoothly - you deserve recognition for the hard work you are doing.

It was busy when we visited so we ordered our drinks and meals online at 5.42 pm. No drinks arrived for over 20 minutes so I fought my way to the bar. Got back to the table with the drinks at 6.10pm to see the food had arrived on its own - still with no drinks. Well weird that is. Wetherspoons always bring the drinks first and very quickly no matter how busy they are. By 6.30 after finishing eating we had still not got the drinks we’d ordered - 50 minutes after ordering them. The food was just OK and nothing special either. My mate phoned them about it and they did eventually brink the drinks over. The staff member was totally unapologetic and defensive only saying we are busy then saying something about their till screens not showing orders properly. Yeah we had worked the “busy” part out already but other establishments have ways of coping with such situations. The Griffin needs to learn from them, sort its till screens out and get its act together or it won’t be very busy in future when people avoid it because of poor customer service. Sorry I can’t recommend the Griffin after such an unexpectedly disappointing experience.

Extremely friendly atmosphere where Connor London made the whole experience relaxed and enjoyable

I popped into the Griffin after work for a drink and a meal with a friend today. The staff were all welcoming and friendly and the food was great! I had the Katsu curry chicken, would definitely recommend it. We will be back!

Well the pub was very busy so I ordered via the app food and drinks at 17.42hrs and the drinks did not arrive at the table so at 18.00hrs my mate went to the bar to get some drinks... at 18.10hrs the food arrived and I asked when we were getting the drinks and she said 'soon" at 18.30hrs we had finished our meal and the additional drink we bought at the bar. At 18.30hrs I then from my table rang the pub and spoke to a lady saying they were busy but she would bring the missing paid for drinks to our table and at 18.40hts she did, that's a full 58min from when they were paid for and her attitude was terrible when questioned her demeanor was one if I just don't give a dam giving excuse bar was too busy and the order goes off the screen so they can't see it not offering any apology at all. Just unacceptable. Now for the quality of the food we'll it's Wetherspoons quality BUT it's more expensive like approx £2.50 a meal and the drinks like £1.50 more. IF you order at Wetherspoons over app you get drinks within 5min EVEN if they are busy and food comes later. More than anything it was the aborrant I don't care attitude that upset me enough to take the time to write this review just awful and so disappointing and unacceptable service

Had chips and gravy it was the very best the chef Karen and the manager Jace helping me with the TripAdvisor and very friendly service from all the staff, will definitely be coming back

I've always avoided the Griffin for some obscure reason, based on absolutely nothing. Went in because a friend's band was playing and was very pleasantly surprised. It's a really unusual interior and the staff we met were really friendly and efficient.

Good live music in Carlisle - enough said

Good live music in Carlisle - enough said. Great atmosphere also, good food and drink, bit on the pricier side for botch but not too expensive at all!

We came round because we heard there was some live music on. Band were great so were the pints, will definitely be back

I visited the Griffin on a Sunday night with my wife and some friends, we all ate main courses and were all impressed with the food we had, excellent sized portions at very reasonable prices. The evening took an unexpected turn when we learned there would be a quiz starting at 8pm, it turned out to be a good old fashioned paper quiz with a broad range of rounds and topics, with the winners receiving a £20 bar credit. The quiz only cost £1 per person to enter and all the proceeds go to MacMillan, a brilliant cause, and a brilliant night. We will be back (to spend our winnings 😜)

Great atmosphere, good food, welcomimg friendly staff We go on a Sunday for the quiz, great fun, well organised

Popped in for a swift half whilst waiting for a train and was very glad I did. Very friendly service and comfortable surroundings. A pleasant start to my journey. I'll be back again.

Came for the Sunday night pub quiz and ended up staying for food as well. Service and food was great and so was the atmosphere. Really nicely done up inside. Will definitely be back!

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.

Very lovely bar after reverb. Very friendly and helpful staff. Very handy location from the train station and right in the heart of the city centre

Very friendly staff. Quick service. Easy to speak to friends with responsibility levelled music. Reasonably priced drinks for the heart of the city centre

Oh dear, food only can be classed as between average and ??? Good service nice decor,music a bit loud, personally we would return for a drink but not to eat.

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.

A standard chain pub near the station. It's main selling point is it being less than 100 yards from the station and offering food that isn't a prepacked sandwich, microwave burger or toasted panni. If you have an hour or so between trains I recommend this pub which is warmer than the station. You can order on the green king app or at the bar. If a rail traveller the app means you can investigate the menu on route, so speeding up the ordering when you arrive at the Griffin. The hot food is nice and they do some excellent no alcohol cocktails (as well as the full range of alcoholic beverages in any pub). The food was delivered relatively quickly, we were in and out within an hour for our single course meal, but probably need to allow more time when they are busy. I have eaten here twice both times during the day out of main meal times, between delayed trains, the menu selection is nice and the food tasty but I was not overwhelmed by the presentation nor the side salad. The salad issue probably needs some expansion, the salad leaves were a little on the limp side and the tomato a bit under ripe - all perfectly edible but a bit disappointing in terms of taste- should have taken the standard garlic bread option rather than the "healthy" alternative. The Mac and Cheese was the excellent warming dish I was expecting, and the burger and chips I had on a previous visit were tasty.

Great staff with a good atmosphere. A good range of sports channels.

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.

Ordered steak an chips with onion rings. The bartender starts asking with fried egg or scampi? Sorry I have to ask all these questions. He didn't say this is at an extra cost. Bit naughty how this was worked into us.

Strange atmosphere the afternoon I was in. Over an hour for food. !! Couldn't even describe how the staff were. !!!

We popped for a drink before going to the races, there was an excellent choice of beer and a very clean and pleasant environment. Won't hesitate to go back.

Very friendly staff we a had a Thursday special steaks they were great value a tasted fantastic

Service quick- too quick. Food microwaved so hallomi fries rubbery. The super grain salad bland, straight from a tin, no crunch, onion and peppers over done and lost all flavour. Dog friendly, but no water bowls evident for my dog or offered.In fact his kibble I’d brought for his tea smelt better than the bland food. chips ok. Worst meal my friend and I have ever had- not to mention human hair in grain salad.

Great looking bar inside that has the football on. Clean inside and quick to get a pint at a decent price. Manager asked how we were doing and made a point in talking to us which I liked. Too many other pubs have staff who...

Quite simply the best steak and ale pie I have ever had. Fantastic.

It's basically weatherspoons, that's all you need to know

Only came in for a drink and then left for my train will definitely come back if I have time to wait in between my train.

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 😀

Friendly staff, nice bright and airy pub, enjoyed having a couple quiet drinks there

Me and daughter very much enjoyed our self and had a lovely time

Came in to watch the football on Wednesday night, good seat a nice pint and the audio on. Plus city won which is a bonus, will return

Mediocre food. We waited 30+ minutes for very simple food and was served a burnt to hell burger (with tomatoes which we asked to have off) and a pie with 13 chips and some overcooked Broccoli. We would have complained except for the fact we...

Update taken over by greene king Very nice in there some top beers available and done out lovely.. 100yds from Carlisle train station have a beer have a brew or meal in very nice surroundings before going on with the rest of your day.. Impressed, they even have all the sport on various tvs around the place what's not to like. 🤷🤷

Great combo lunch with easy ordering on app. Very quick service from lovely polite staff.

Busy town centre pub, lots of TVs, very popular

My first visit! Pub was very busy and the staff were working hard to get orders out. Good decor and atmosphere too.

Went in on the 29/7/23 the staff very rude, stuff missing off the plate that was meant to be on staff didn’t care food was vile! They didn’t give us kids deserts that’s are meant to come with them even though they were asked for!...

Nice pub big problem was the price of the drinks to expensive pub in town

We’ve been regular visitors to The Griffin over the years, but this was the first time we’ve had something to eat. My wife had the tacos with pulled pork. She thought the amount of pulled pork was a bit on the small side. I had...

Don’t bother ordering a portion of chips unless you are a child! They were so tiny more like a kids portion. The drinks are also ridiculously expensive would not recommend! go to the weather spoons down the road instead it’s much better and cheaper😂.

Not quite the cozy atmosphere of some English pubs. Decent selection of ales and lagers. Didn't try the food.

We found it very hard to find a dog friendly pub in Carlisle but this was top of the list so thought we would give it a go. The nachos with the pulled pork were one of the best we’ve had. Easy to find as...

Sorry to say the customer service has let us down this visit. Have used the griffin many times in the past but this time, after two mediocre pints and one awful one (flat as a pancake which, I’m sorry, will not be saved by pouring out a third and topping up) and with no negotiation from the manager about supplying a fresh pint we left with £5.80 down the drain and a bitter taste in our mouths.