Oh, this is a bar?
We weren’t expecting much when we visited Aire Bar. We’d seen the riverside garden from the other side of the Aire but other than that the entrance didn’t tempt us. In fact, the signage seemed more appropriate for a gym than for a bar.
Bar? Or gym?
So climbing down the stairs imagine our surprise to find a huge vaulted brick cavern at river level, with four massive rooms (pool room, regular bar, sofa lounge and dining room)! There is a huge amount of seating inside and a very decent amount outside too. The walls are adorned with local art, mostly depicting the River Aire. The view of the river is unrivalled here — the bar deserves its name! — and this lends the bar a feeling of being far away from the busy city centre.
The bar. OK, you can’t tell much from this photo.
There are 3 local cask ales (Saltaire Pride, Black Sheep and Ossett Yorkshire Blonde when we visited) and a handful of interesting kegs (Blue Moon, Fruli and Veltins). In the fridge we also spied Leffe, Vedett and Tiger. Not the greatest beer selection we’ve seen, but much better than we expected. At £3.40 a pint for local ales, though, it’s not cheap.
This red pool table has pride of place in one of the four rooms.
Aire Bar has a ridiculous number of amenities. As well as the sofas and beer garden, there’s pool, an arcade machine, a cash machine and the fastest free wifi we’ve seen so far. Food is served until 8pm and the menu includes an all-day full English breakfast as well as reasonably priced pub classics. The bar also shows live sports, which are never a draw for us but with the amount of space here we’d probably be fine even when they’re showing.
The amazing riverside location. Maybe when the weather’s nicer, eh?
It’s funny that this place is so unassuming and almost unwelcoming from the outside, because it has a lot to offer people, but maybe its reputation precedes it and it doesn’t need the publicity!
Tags: arcade games, beer garden, breakfast, food, free wifi, pool table, sofas, sports
We're on a quest to review every pub and bar in Leeds city centre. After 199 reviews we've finally caught up and now we're waiting for more to open!
Good pint of Yorkshire Lager on tap in here served in a frosted glass, only ever seen it in York. Flying Dog, Sierra Nevada, and Brooklyn in the fridge as well. Judging by the crowds it’s definitely a sunbathing hotspot. Not a bad spot for a sunny afternoon in the city.
Poorly advertised, as mentioned above- the venue still remains busy as most people can see the riverside terrace and want to get there. Very difficult to actually get a seat out there on a sunny day, and even if you do, you’re next to someone blowing smoke in your face.
The rest of the pub is pretty dull and bland and a really uninspired use of what is a terrific gentrified location. Yet another bar that doesn’t really have a ‘base’, just a load of transient custom and that leads to a lack of identity.