I've been to the Oxford Road Font once or twice with friends for a cheap cocktail or two (or five) before, but I didn't realise they were a local chain or that they had other venues in Fallowfield and Chorlton.
I found myself in the Chorlton Font on New Year's Day with a handful of friends, as we'd decided to go out for a drink or two then rather than NYE. We were able to get a table large enough to accommodate the six of us, and then set about perusing the cocktail list.
The venue itself is reasonably large, and looks like it would seat quite a lot of people with more room for further patrons if you're not fussed about a chair. The sizeable bar runs most of the length of the room and has a staggering array of 16 draught and 6 or so cask beers on, which is a LOT for a place which I've only ever thought of as a student watering hole.
I only had the one drink, but for that one drink I opted for what seems to be my "usual" when it comes to cocktails: a bramble. The drink itself was nice, and at £3.50 certainly affordable. For the rest of our group, other popular choices were the espresso martini and the Aperol pistachio float; though one of our group elected to drink his way through all of the milk-based cocktails on the list which was impressive.
I have to say that, if I lived in Chorlton, I could see myself frequenting The Font quite a lot as it's got a good vibe to it and their beer range is certainly one which I think I would enjoy sampling my way along.
Why am I only giving it 3 stars, then?
That's quite simple. The first reason is that, despite the cocktail list saying quite clearly that there was an offer of 2 Cocktails* for £5 Mon - Fri during a certain time, when I asked for two of these at the bar I was charged the full price. Admittedly the full price was only £7 so not the largest difference, but when I queried it with the bartender he gruffly informed me that the cocktail offer was only Mon - Thurs. Either he was wrong or the cocktail lists are wrong, but either way that was a little irritating.
The second reason is that the gents toilets were a bit of a mess. There were paper towels all over the place, some of which were either soaking up a leak from somewhere or were absorbing something a little less savoury. There was also no soap in the dispenser. Now, I know what you're going to say - "blokes don't wash their hands anyway" - but I do and the general state of the gents was disappointing.
That being said, this was the first time I've ever been to this branch of The Font and it was New Year's Day so maybe it was an off day for them. I'd be perfectly happy to go back, and these aren't the hardest problems in the world to fix.
All in, The Font in Chorlton seems like a good spot to go for some cheap cocktails and good beers. read more