The Boat House salisbury

We visited late on Christmas Eve for a place to wait while picking up a relative at the next door coach stop, so picked a really bad time. The pub was about to close for a private party having an evening meal, so they were showing the pressure. Nevertheless, it was comfortable and warm for a drink, and might even be good for a meal one day, as this part of Salisbury has no other eateries.

Nice little Riverside pub in Salisbury,great if you have a long wait to catch the national express bus..

It is OK. Nice position on the River Avon where you can admire old buildings on the opposite bank, see trout and water voles swimming about and, if you are lucky, catch a glimpse of a kingfisher. The pub itself has seen better days and desperately needs sprucing up. Sadly, the place does not seem to have much business so it is unlikely Greene King will allocate any budget for that which is a real shame as the pub definitely has potential. Also, I wouldn't describe it as a "gastropub".

Good food and drink attentive service

For all those London Hipster-Types who claim to know where to find the best burger and then wind up in - Gourmet Burger (who will never serve you a 'blue' burger) or worse Byron (who claim to serve 'proper burgers' and yet will also not serve you a 'blue' burger or even The Rare Burger Company (who despite their false advertising name will also not serve you a 'blue' burger - The Boathouse is your awakening. Not only do they grind their own mince (an essential health and safety requirement if you want to cook your burgers to order) but they will also happily make you the rarest of rare (think steak tartar) burgers. Make sure you are emphatically clear with the bartender (or the chef will think you meant medium rare) just say you want your burger raw and you will send it back if it's not. That way your blue burger will arrive perfectly prepared and without one single hypocritical hipster in sight.

Nice pint whilst waiting for the bus.

Don't eat here if you're vegetarian. Or like good food. A large group of us turned up for a late Sunday lunch to find that there was a Sunday Roast menu. They'd sold out of a number of items, which wasn't that surprising as we were late, but there wasn't a single vegetarian main course on offer. My veggie friend choose the only two vegetarian options on the entire menu - soup and chips. They were out of soup so she had to have just chips. Turns out she wasn't missing much. I had roast beef - the beef, tiny Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes were OK (but nothing special) but the veg all had an odd taste to it, as though it had all been cooked in dishwater. I couldn't eat it. On the plus side, they have a loft-style seating area upstairs which, although basic and plain, was ideal for our large group to all socialise together. As I left, I noticed the large sign outside advertising "book now for Easter lunch" - 2 weeks after Easter! That probably says all you need to know about the place - even the management don't seem to care.