Horse and Stables, Lambeth, London

 

The Horse and Stables is a hostel as well as a bar, but it was immediately obvious they do neither of these competently. I entered and there was a bartender standing around watching another talk to a woman who had booked ahead and paid in advance for a room that wasn’t available. Another couple were waiting for a similar problem’s resolution. A third employee mopped over my shoes but none of them offered to serve me any beer.

 

 

 

The manager came downstairs and started bullshitting the prepaid woman and the bartender who had not been serving her stepped back and continued to also not serve me for the next five minutes, opting instead to watch as the manager steered the three disgruntled (and still homeless) customers to a couch. She didn’t offer them a beverage or anything else for their trouble, either, which was unsurprising since I couldn’t even BUY a glass of beer, here.

 

 

The Mopper stopped and stared at me for an instant and I pointed to the Outlawed beer tap and mimed drinking a pint in one go and inverting the phantom glass over my head. He wandered off and the bartender came over and finally served me, wordlessly save for telling me the price which I paid in copper and other small denomination coinage before joining the depressed looking survivors of earlier assaults on the concept of hospitality. Horse and Stables? More like Kafka’s Funhouse. Hostel or Hostile?

 

 

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