"Perhaps the best indicator of the state of this place is a comparison with the excellent Preston, just yards down the road. We wanted an early pint and Preston was full unsurprisingly because it’s warm, welcoming and clean with lovely staff and great...beer. Having not been into the Stew and Oyster for a while, we thought we’d give it a try. It was maybe a quarter full. It was unwelcoming, with dirty glasses littering empty tables. All the surfaces felt sticky and unwashed in a while and the whole place just felt dirty. The beer selection is great if you like mass produced keg beer. It seems the artisan beer revolution has passed the S+O by. There were a couple of hand pumped ales but no indicator of what they were, unlike the informative chalk board in Preston. The acoustics are horrible, lots of cavernous empty space which allowed the screaming child downstairs to be heard in great detail through the whole pub as the sound bounced off the empty, unadorned walls. This place could be good if only somebody would put a bit of effort into decor, cleaning and beer selection. They should take a leaf out of Preston’s book and ask themselves why one place is packed and popular and the other isn’t."
