Norwich – Glass House (Two Julians)

The sixth pub in our perambulation around Norwich was the JD Wetherspoon operated Glass House. I didn’t really need to take more photos of here as I likely have several hundred from over the years. The pub isn’t listed in the Good Beer Guide, but I suspect it wasn’t far away given how many pubs from this chain that are listed. I will note that I like this pub, I’ve been coming here for over two decades and it’s generally always been excellent with very few exceptions that I can think of.

The pub opened in 2001 and I’ll borrow their history of the venue:

“Numbers 11–13 Wensum Street were previously in use as small shops and The Glass House Restaurant, the latter recalling the glass company which had been on this site for several decades. The Glass House owes its name to both the glass company which had been on this site for several decades and Norwich’s long history with glass. The Norwich School of glass makers was a mediaeval Norwich-based community of stained glass markers, mostly active between the mid-14th century and the English Reformation, when much of the glass was destroyed as part of the general injunction against stained glass, shrines, roods, statues and bells. The school’s generally light and uncomplicated style has stylised methods of depicting floors and countryside, including motifs resembling ears of barley, seaweed, chequers or pebbles. In common with other church craftsmen, the glass painters used a characteristic border design which resembled a holly leaf wrapped around a rod, as seen at the top of the pub fronts ionic pillars.”

Julian remembers the restaurant and the shops that were based here, but that’s before my time. Credit, once again, to JD Wetherspoon for making an effort to display information about the history of the building and the area. Thank goodness for George Plunkett in general and his archive has a wonderful photo of the building from 1938.

The real ale options, including a couple from the chain’s real ale festival that is taking place at the moment. The pricing is towards the lower end of the scale for drinks, rivalled only really by Craft Union pubs in terms of national brands. The beer selection is broadly excellent, there are cask ales, craft cans and a couple of interesting keg options.

My quick snack of three chicken based items for £7.49, which seemed a marvellous idea as we hadn’t yet eaten on our walking expedition. The food was served promptly, it was reasonably priced and it met my expectations in terms of the taste, temperature and presentation. The food prices have been sneaking up for some time and this pub is one of the more expensive in the chain. Julian marched through his scampi and curry sauce with some satisfaction.

The beer is the Killanny Red Ale from Brehon Brewhouse Brewery which was well-kept and had some interesting toffee and caramel flavours going on. I ordered the drink at the bar and I didn’t have to wait for long to be served and they were dealing with customers in turn. The layout of the pub is odd because of its history, there are three segments to the bar and I think the staff prefer serving from the middle but I like ordering at the large section as that’s where their real ales are. There are some historic elements to the venue, including the ability to peer through a little window in the main room upstairs down towards the area where we were sitting, it all adds to the quirkiness of the pub.

I have always been impressed (as I don’t get out much) that big data can produce some very similar results and nearly every JD Wetherspoon ends up with a rating of between 3.8 and 4.1 on Google Reviews, with this one being at the top of that scale. It is fair to say that I ponder these things for too long perhaps. As it’s a Wetherspoons, I consider it fair game to go through the reviews and merrily repost some.

“Waited at the bar for ages to be served. Then a gentleman came to the bar and got served straight away. Made a comment about it and got a load of mouth from a bloke behind the bar! If you served your customers in a responsible amount of time you wouldn’t get any comments. Very rude and unprofessional.”

I love reviews like this as I want to know what the “comment” was, I bet it wasn’t what could be defined as helpful….

“Awful experience here would not recommend staff were incredibly rude and un-welcoming on arrival. Told the manager we were upset and he told us we wouldnt be getting served anymore because his staff felt ‘uncomfortable’ after we had Confronted them on their rudeness. Which we found bizarre. Disgusting hospitality”

After we had “confronted them”, I mean, I can’t imagine what has happened there.

“If i knew that in this pub you have to behave like in a church, i would never go there, the employee who kept shushing us because we were laughing too loud, refused to buy us the next round of beer, he was very rude (he had long bangs combed to the side ) honestly if you want to go there in a group of friends, learn sign language because you will be asked to leave. Waste of time .”

Good, I bet they were being too loud.

“Door supervisor was a clown, warned us he’d kick us out for laughing.”

Marvellous.

“If I could give it 0 stars I would. Bar staff served our group of 6 two drinks, and decided we’d had too many because we were laughing a lot. Very poor form, would not recommend if you want to stay for more than 1 drink. Idiots running the whole gaff”

And another win for the pub’s peace and quiet. There’s always a Greene King pub if people want to have a laugh.

“We got chucked out as a group of people at 21.30 on 9.03.19 ,just because one of us was a little alibriated, we were then ALL tarred with the same brush ,some of us had only just arrived,…..there was a man on the sidelines ,so drunk shouting his head off he was allowed to stay…. Sorry don’t understsnd……we all moved on and had a very nice evening ..”

Bloody alibriated customers.

“Can’t believe this place doesn’t allow well behaved dogs ..better behaved than some humans.. I understand not allowed in the pub but surely outside …”

I see a lot of reviews like this and I’m not sure whether each pub is meant to employ someone who judges what is a well behaved dog and what is a bloody nuisance. I can say that there are quite a lot of annoying dogs in pubs which I suspect the owners think is either cute, tolerable or acceptable.

“Have to pay on phone app upstairs , will not take cash ? Even though they advertise ” table service ” if you want to pay cash , you have to down stairs where they will take cash . ( Not upstairs ???? )”

Slightly aspirational in a Wetherspoons to expect to pay cash at the table, but there we go.

All told, I was happy with this visit and once again, JD Wetherspoon proved to be a reliable operator. They are sometimes rather too maligned in my view, but each to their own of course. As for Julian and I, we will continue to monitor their standards by visiting at off-peak times on a regular basis.