Pub of the week

THE BUTCHER’S DOG, DRIFFIELD

It’s a genuine joy to find a pub that is prospering, particularly after everything they’ve had thrown at them over the past couple of years. When I last visited The Butcher’s

Dog in Driffield, about seven years ago, it hadn’t long opened and was a simple (but delightful) tiny, one-room micropub with a nice selection of drinks, a jar of pickled eggs and little else. Then, last summer, the whole pub – pumps, pickled eggs, punters et al – uppedsticks and moved along and across the street into the former Old Falcon.

It’s still a one-room pub (with, admittedly, a separate games room) but probably at least two or three times the size of the old place, so regulars finally have space to open their newspapers without poking someone else in the eye.

The red livery of the old pub has been retained but there are now real barebrick walls where once the impression was created by patterns on wallpaper.

Nights and events seem to be a big thing. So there is a beer & book club, a veterans breakfast club, music nights, quiz nights and psychic nights, which no-one could have seen coming.

Best of all, there is food. It’s only served on certain days and the menu is kept deliberately short but you’re well advised to try the handsome Sunday dinners or turn up for the regular pie and peas nights.

In a rather pleasing coincidence, 200 years ago, the pub formerly known as the Old Falcon and Middle Pub was originally called the Dog & Duck, so it’s now finally gone canine again.

■ The Butcher’s Dog, 57 Market Place, Driffield, YO25 6AW.

Tel: 01377 252229.