Lifeboat Tavern, Tenby, Review

We stopped here for lunch on a busy Easter school holidays weekend.  We happened across the place just before midday and there was a small queue waiting inside.  We decided that was a good sign and went for this pub rather than the many other options in the town.

Inside there is an atmospheric pubby bit as you walk in and we were drawn to that area, but there are additional seating areas with more of a restaurant feel and a beer garden too.  The pub bit has a very nautical atmosphere as the bar is made of an old lifeboat and other parts of the boat are used as a part of the decor.

It was a little odd that you could only order drinks at the top bar and that you had to order drinks and food separately.  Also, no card payments are accepted so you’ll need to have cash (there is a HSBC two doors up the road and there was a bit of a queue for it when we walked past – in fact if you want a cashpoint without a queue I suggest you try the one at the rear of Barclays Bank, but that’s further away).

I was glad to see they had Doombar on a hand pull when we went in, so I knew there would be something decent to drink.  There was also a locally brewed beer on hand pull.  The staff kindly offered me a taste of this, but it was too light a beer for me, so I opted to for the Doombar, which was decent.

We opted for variants on fish and chips as we were in a seaside town.  My companion had the beer battered fish and chips with peas, which was enormous.  I tried a little and wasn’t so keen on the batter which seemed a little heavy.  It was a perfectly fine portion of pub standard fish and chips and we’d certainly be happy to eat there again.  I had the scampi and chips with peas, which I really enjoyed.  It was good quality scampi and again a generous portion.  The food came very quickly when you consider that they had a rush of orders in just after opening and the pub was pretty busy all the time we were there.it

They do offer a particular meal which must be huge and there are pictures of people who have tried to eat it in under 10 minutes on the wall and there is even a league table of those who did it fastest.  If you do manage to eat the whole meal in under 10 minutes you get it for free.