The Freshfield Hotel - or 'The Freshie' is located a short walk from Freshfield train station in…read moreone of the most affluent parts of Formby. This pub has recently been through a major refit and is now serving the community as not only a fantastic CAMRA recognised pub but also a great place to eat. The service is top and the prices are reasonable. My only criticism is that since the refit it has become very popular so you can sometimes struggle to find a seat on a Friday and Saturday night. It's so refreshing to have a pub which is not pretentious nor cheap 'n' cheesy.

This imaginatively named pub, situated just around the corner from Freshfield station and the…read moremillionaire's row of the area, Victoria Road, is cosy and offers a great selection of guest ales to accompany the usual draught lagers. The food there is very nice and not particularly expensive and the pub itself, whilst on the small side, makes up for it in comfort and with a friendly atmosphere. They also hold regular comedy nights that are always worth attending if you fancy trying to spot the next big thing or, more realistically, you want to see someone crash and burn horribly. Another popular night is the monthly open mic night, which plays host to a number of talented musicians from around the local area. I have also attended many functions in the back room of the pub and have found it to be a very good venue for occasions such as birthdays and football dos, including use of a disco system playing all your cheesy favourites. Think cosy pint beside the fire rather than the pre-cursor to your messy night out.

I will always remember this pub fondly as the first place I bought my first pint (legally) and I am…read moresure I am not alone in sharing this landmark with the Cross House. I guess this little story sums up the Cross House's status as a pub for special occasions for me, but never considered as a viable option for my local. The interior is interestingly decorated and the variety of different seating available is excellent, offering many comfortable areas to converse over a few pints. The food served there is nothing special - standard pub fare and priced accordingly - but whenever I have visited the atmosphere has always been warm and inviting, perfect for a birthday or other special occasion. That's the thing though; although it's a very pleasant pub, it just doesn't have the 'feel' of a local. Maybe it's something to do with the distinct lack of odd, drunken regulars (they always seem a respectable lot in there) which I see as a staple of establishments to be considered as my 'local' (is this normal for someone my age? Let's not go there). They also have a weekly quiz night, although it is probably one of the more difficult ones in Formby (only beaten by the Bay Horse) and a lovely outdoor area, perfect for a not-so-warm summer's night with a few bottles of cider.

This is pub I went to on my eighteenth birthday. It wasn't the first place I ever drank - I won't…read morename and shame the pub that served me when I was sixteen - but it was the first place I legally drank. It's a nice pub too, smokefree before it became the law (strange to think there was ever a time when you might come home from a pub stinking of tobacco) and with a gastopub-leaning menu before gastropub really existed (a pub with asparagus on the menu, even if it was a Formby specialty, was unheard of) It has the sort of unpracticed sort of charm, with mismatched furniture and low beams, that only an authentic pub really does, the sort of authentic pub-charm that various branches of Wetherspoons and Slug & Lettuce try to emulate. They have old speckled hen on tap occasional live music and the pub quiz is easily the best to be found in Formby. It's a shame that we hardly seem to go anymore, I'll have to start reliving my eighteenth birthday.

Lovely and comfortable pub and restaurant with excellent food and attentive but not over the top…read moreservice. Becoming a family favourite.

Very nice food and great service. Little loud for us oldies but we will most definately be back…read morethanks

Fed up with formulaic watering holes? Unimpressed by yet another stapled leatherette and chipboard…read morebooth makeover by some business blokes thinking they know what you want? Ian and Kier host this cosy room with the accent on local brews and chairs. Requesting gin I was asked if I wanted Formby or Ormskirk! Who would have thought?! So the choice for botanicals is either asparagus or cabbage? This is as close to the public house concept as you can get; Small, local, locally sourced, family run, chatty clientele who have mostly walked there. Outside seating is available using barrels on the pavement with space to park your Raleigh push-iron so no excuses not get back to the essence of pub life. P.S. The best chip shop in Formby is a beer mat flick away but that's another story......

A road sign outside the squirrel reserve pointing doggedly into suburbia is, I imagine, the only…read moreevidence the outside world has of the Pinewoods' existence. After strolling for what seemed like miles (it wasn't) through a serene neighbourhood I found the pub. An attractive building both inside and out, it's hard to imagine anything troubling occurring in the Pinewoods apart from a customer dropping a fork or a salt shaker accidentally containing pepper. It's quiet is what I'm trying to say. Splendid when bathed in sunlight, I had no problem with the place until I realised the only CD being played was Rod Stewart. I had nothing against the man before but sat listening to his hoarse crooning for an hour made me want to claw my brain off and shove it into my ears. I asked the friendly barmaid if she'd chosen it and she replied wearily "No, the manager did. It's always either this or Dean Martin." Poor woman.

Formby is full of up-market coffee-shop-cum-bars in which local inhabitants hope to spot such local…read morecelebrities as Steven Gerrard and Alex Curran. The Pinewoods pub is not one of these places. Situated a stone's throw away from Formby beach and, funnily enough, the Squirrel reserve and pinewoods, this sleepy pub offers a quiet, relaxed atmosphere in which to drink and eat, offering a range of tasty homemade favourites for reasonable prices. If celeb spotting and expensive drinks are your criteria for a good place to drink then the Pinewoods pub is not for you but those who favour good prices and a friendly atmosphere could do a lot worse than check this pleasant pub out.

Until fairly recently I frequented The Railway often, going there at least once or twice a week,…read moremore if we were going on a night out. Recently though, with the emergence of The Grapes as a popular pub in Formby, The Railway has somewhat lost its charm. I guess the thing about The Railway is its reliability and familiarity - it doesn't really change, the same people are in there every week - and whilst it is its steadiness that makes it so comfortable, it is also its downfall. Despite this, I still find The Railway one of the better pubs to go for a drink in Formby, although it is quite expensive for drinks (even the cheapest pint is about £2.50). The pub itself is fairly large and has a vast array of seating, including a lovely outdoor area with heating lamps for those who choose to brave those colder evenings. The food there is also very good, with weekly curry and steak nights that are very popular. I would also recommend the Monday night quiz for those of you who prefer your quizzes a bit easier (not that I've ever won it, mind) but avoid the confusing Wednesday night one, which is a normal quiz mixed with bingo style rules. A good, reliable pub that will still be around long after the others have fallen from popularity.

My local, for which it suffers and is praised accordingly. On the one hand they do serve hand…read morepulled ales (with a personal favourite Timothy Taylor's Landlord always on tap) and decent grub - thick steak burgers, hearty sandwiches with chunky mustard mayo, surprisingly delicately flavoured curries. But, on the other hand it suffers from familiarity - I know which chairs are unevenly legged, which tables will get oppressively warm once the place fills up, exactly what time they will dim the lights and turn up the music 'for the evening crowd'. It's simply hard for me to get very excited about The Railway - but then, the more I think about it this is probably the best thing about the pub, it's absolute consistency. The beer garden has a nice atmosphere in the summer too, with people sloshing glasses of increasingly odd-flavoured ciders into their faces and taking advantage of the few hundred hours of sunshine we manage each year. Lovely stuff.

Unlike my fellow yelper Matt, I am rather fond of a good carvery (I've found it to be a very…read moresatisfying hangover cure actually) so as you might guess, The Bay Horse in Formby rates quite highly on my list of pubs-that-I-would-eat-in-but-probably-not-get-pissed-in. The presence of the carvery means that whenever you go in there it always smells like food, but in a really nice way, and the carvery itself represents good value for money due to its generous portions at a reasonable price. It is also one of the cheapest places to drink in Formby, which is obviously a big plus point however due to the nature of the pub, the clientele it attracts are usually middle-aged men or families, so it's not really the place to go before embarking on a night out. There is also a weekly quiz night which includes a free buffet for all participants, which is perhaps there to soften the blow of the quiz being ridiculously difficult (you couldn't even Google some of the questions for answers last time I was there, they were that obscure). Still, despite its bad points, The Bay Horse is definitely one of the better places in Formby to go for a good pub scran.

I'm not a huge fan of the carvery, so straight away I am at odds with the basic tenants of the Bay…read moreHorse. I just don't really like the idea of warmed through roast meat - for me a roast is either piping hot out of the oven or it's cold and eaten the next day straight out of the fridge. Also every time I've come here to drink I've not found anywhere to sit, which is another black mark against its name. Location-wise it's neither here nor there, being neither in Freshfield nor really on the Formby village pub/bar route. In The Bay Horse's favour, it serves the cheapest pints in Formby - with Carlsberg only just tipping the £2 mark - a decently sized beer garden (which unfortunately faces out to a fairly busy main road) and those little saucy seaside postcards framed up around the place, which I probably shouldn't like but really do.

This cosy little café/bar is carefully hidden away down a side street in the middle of Formby…read morevillage so could be easily missed. In the daytime, it is your typical little café, offering cappuccinos, lattes, various panninis and the like. However, it is of an evening when Café D'Art comes alive, as Formby residents flock there long after the other local drinking establishments close (they have late opening hours, ideal for those poor souls craving a replacement for Shorrock's Hill, Europe's number 1 hotspot). The drinks there aren't very cheap but by the time you get there you're usually too pissed to care, plus the beer they have there is pretty good compared to your usual pub draughts. The only negative is its size, meaning it can be full without really being that busy, which usually results in the action spilling out onto the alley and round the corner into the village but if you don't mind the squeeze then I highly recommend Café D'Art as a place to drink through to the early hours.

There is a distinctly French theme to Formby's backstreet eat-and-drinkeries, well to two of them -…read moreCafe des Crepes and this little establishment. Its quiches, soups, pizzas and paninis all round here; mostly homemade (or at least constructed on site) and with judicious use of sundried tomatoes and oil. Dessert-wise it's spongy cakes, teacakes and sticky tarts - great stuff. Of an evening the little place goes full-on wine bar and serves a selection of beers, wines and spirits in a brassiere style. Of a weekend there can be a real throng of locals in here dissecting the week's events over a vodka tonic or a petite glass of beer. The walls of the establishment are hung with local art, usually of a surprisingly high quality and in a variety of styles, all of which is available for purchase. Definitely one of the best destinations in Formby for a drink, some light lunch or some art-gazing. Fantastic.

Despite it's rather isolated location, the Weld Blundell defies most stereotypes of a country pub;…read moreit is surprisingly large, welcoming parties and coach tours, and boasting wifi and a plasma screen tv, it is neither quaint nor antiquated. It is beautifully decorated in a fresh, modern style that retains some sense of its rural setting (made somewhat unrural by the hectic traffic of Scaffold Lane) The food served is traditional pub grub: grills; burgers; salads some of which are included on a 'two for the price of one' basis This offer includes the Sunday and Wednesday carvery dinner. I must admit, I was a little disappointed when I visited, the service was good, but I did not enjoy my meal, however, my guest enjoyed theirs and the other diners seemed happy.

The location of pub/restaurants the Red Squirrel and the Weld Blundell are somewhat strange, sat on…read moreeither side of a busy bypass which is regularly filled with speeding cars. Thankfully once you enter the Weld Blundell, things seem a lot more normal as you are warmly greeted by a member of staff before being seated. The interior is well decorated and gives off feelings of warmth and comfort. In terms of value for money, the Weld is probably one of the cheapest pubs to dine in around the local area, offering 2-for-1 deals on all meals. The food there is the usual 'pub grub' - burgers, some pasta dishes, salads - but the real value for money is in the carvery. Whilst not quite on a par with the Bay Horse, the carvery on offer here is still very good, with one able to fill up on succulent meat and delicious potatoes and vegetables as high as you can stack them. On my last visit, my girlfriend and I got desserts as part of the deal as well, both of which were very good (I highly recommend the cheesecake) which again represented brilliant value for money. A tip though - Sundays can be very busy so if you're in a rush I wouldn't recommend coming here hoping to grab a quick bite.

Owned by modern footballing legend, Everton's 'Big' Duncan Ferguson this cafe-bar-bistro is a bit…read moreof a chameleon. By day it is filled with ladies who lunch, dining on the selection of decent-enough bar snacks and throwing back lattes like their rotary club membership depended on it. Of a night though it transforms into one of Formby's most popular nightspots with live music (usually by covers acts or local acoustic guitarists playing a selection of middle-of-the-road pop'n'rock picks) beer-quaffing customers spilling out onto the pavement in various states of merriness. Inside it's a little narrow and there's probably a bit too much in the way of padded leather seating but it is almost impossible to not get caught up in the lively atmosphere of a Friday or Saturday night spent here, especially in the summer months. They should really stop showing that video of the fireplace on the television when it's not being used for sport though.

This little coffee shop began its life owned by ex-Everton centre-half Alan Stubbs, who opened two…read morecoffee shops - one in Formby and a significantly larger one in Birkdale down the road. Unfortunately for Formby, it got stuck with the smaller version, with coffee drinkers squeezed into the narrow inside whenever it's raining or cold. If it turns out to be quite a pleasant day, customers will almost certainly be found at the outside seating, because people like nothing more than to sit by the side of a road in the village (never seen the appeal, myself). Of a night, Woodwards becomes another one of Formby's busy bars as its finest (and some minor celebrities, if you're lucky) quickly fill the inside and out, meaning those spilling out of here and at D'Art often meet. Like The Gallery, if trendy wine bars are your cup of tea, I'd recommend it but I generally find it all a bit too posy for my liking and therefore generally try to avoid it.