Joseph Else (JDW)

Central location, next to the Old Square Market. We came her for the autumn festival beers 2022. Three new ones for us, served in thirds. They had in fact 15 HP, in addition to the festival ales and the regular ones, there were a few HPs with local ales from Nottingham Brewery. Polite service. Traditional spoon with more cask ales than usually. (Visited with Finn 12.10.2022).

Semi modern JDW with an OK beer selection.

Visit October 2014

We had breakfast here on a Saturday morning. We got a table, but there was too little staff, so it took forever to get the food and for them to clear the table of the coffee cups from the previous guests. Beer selection was fairly good, but we had already had most of them earlier in the week at The Roebuck, but that should not detract in the score for this place. I liked The Roebuck a lot more and they are so close, so go there instead, if you want to visit a JDW.

Visited a few times in past, mainly for breakfast.. A large place, placed in city center, easy to find. Lots of seatings, traditionel JDW deco. Can be busy at times.. Nice selection of beers.. Friendly staff..

Regular JDW. Had just one new beer her, but if I hadn’t just been to the Nottingham Beer Festival, then I would have had five new beers here. Regular service.

Not the best beer choice in Nottingham, but probably one of the best beer choices in Nottingham at 9.00 on a Sunday morning when on a lads weekend away. Dingy spoons service was ok just waiting for the real pubs to open.

Not my kind of pub. Sterile and modern (although beginning to look tired). Boring cask selection. Cheap though. Food ok.

We (me and Dad) visited The Joseph Else, Saturday 9th April 2016. The reason we visited here was simply at 10:30 there were very few if any of the quality establishments open. I didn’t know who Joseph Else was but just checked him out and understand that he was born in Nottingham and was Principal of the city’s School of Art during 1923–39. He was also responsible for the famous lions guarding the entrance to the Council House which you can see from looking out of the front of the pub.

It is well located just across the tram tracks on South Parade though really to make things easier it is essentially at the bottom end of the Old Market Sq.

It is a typically very large JDW, with a capacity of 650 I noticed on a plaque by the door. At this hour, whilst well short of that total it still had a fair few folks in here, sadly a number of them looked like years of heavy drinking were taking its toll on their features, and their ability to talk without using the F word. It is a long narrow but tall building, as ever dingy lighting and carpeted floors add a few minus points from me. We sat near the front of the place in order to get some natural light, though any view of the market square was continually blighted by a steady stream of folk heading outside for a fag and choosing not to move any further than directly in front of the entrance or by the windows.

We never stayed long, but note it wasn’t all negative, the staff were friendly, we were served very promptly and even though we were not struck on the beers, the choice was pretty good and they were in very good condition.

We found this to be somewhat dingy and shabby, although it is certainly popular for the breakfasts. We had a double whammy with slow service on both the bar and food, others knowing to tap up the waitress to get their food quickly leaving ours cold. Local beers. Won’t be returning.