I was recently reminded of a visit I had to this pub/disaster area some time ago for a friends birthday and while the other reviews are rather more favourable than my own, I can only comment on my own experience.
This particular visit to The Magic Garden was on a Saturday night and was therefore very busy. A band were playing then after that was a DJ set until the small hours. The music wasn't exactly to my taste - a bit too dancy and hip-hoppy for me - but the music wasn't an issue as, after all, music is just a preference. A greater problem was getting some drinks in (and then keeping hold of them, more on that shortly) as the bar space does become very crowded. To confound this the bar staff are not the quickest when it comes to serving and what with half of the customers trying to push in front of each other to get served first makes for a very aggravating and drawn out experience. In total I spent as much time in a queue for the bar as I did away from it with a drink in my hand. To make matters worse, on one occasion after just buying some drinks they were promptly swiped from the bar. The culprits were caught and after some amount of fuss the bouncers - despite looking mean actually aren't which is both pleasantly surprising and a little unhelpful when they're actually called upon - did diffuse and resolve the situation but not entirely satisfactorily as we had our drinks replaced but hardly a word was said to those responsible. I received the impression that this was far from the first time in which an incident such as this needed resolving. Nice.
However, the worst was to come at the end of the night after the place had closed. As a group of five or so of us stood outside trying to figure out the whereabouts of a fallen comrade when, amongst us, a joke was cracked and a momentary loud(ish) laughter broke out. With this a small fellow (I presume he was the owner or manager as he seemed to be calling the shots with the staff) trundled by and shouted at one of our party to "shut the fuck up" - the irony of shouting when you are seeking quietude was completely lost on the wee man. While my friend was being restrained I advised The Man Who Manners Forgot that he would be doing himself a favour if he just walked away, to which he muttered something about doing us a favour before scampering off to the big doormen, telling them to get rid of us and then bolting back inside the building. As I've already mentioned, the bouncers were of the more passive variety and instead of causing a fuss actually just spoke quietly and an amicable resolution was quickly found. Mr Bouncer could only agree when I pointed out that one day, sooner or later, his boss will more than likely get him in trouble behaving like that.
One of the few plus-points was the infamous garden, it is large and has many open seating areas and quite some more private, closed-in areas too but is otherwise unspectacular and largely unmagical. However, to The Magic Garden's detriment, it's large garden - the main selling point - has to be closed to the customers by 11:00pm to give the local residents some peace.
Other reviews mention the food and visits in the afternoon - I can't comment on either of these as they are outside of my own experience. It does sound as though it is quite possible to have a nice time here but I'm afraid I'll never find that out for myself as deplorable behaviour and unwarranted verbal abuse from an owner/manager has left absolutely no desire for me to ever return. Quite unforgivable.
I am inclined to add half a star on top of the one that was so easy to give as there is a rather friendly cat which lives on the premises. But I won't.
TTFN,
Ian
... I presume the cat lives there, if not then I was playing with a stray! read more