Britannia Arms

I am a little ashamed of not giving great reviews to those that deserve it but coming straight online to give reviews of awfulness but I will try to bear that in mind next time.
Yep loads of TV’s, packed crowd (so they probably don’t give a damn about bad reviews) but really!!! please make sure you eat at one of the restaurants next door and come here for adult drinks. (or stick with salad or wings etc) hahaha or drink a lot before ordering.
OK I only have a review of what items my family ordered but I am also English and there is nothing about this place thats authentic (except its food is the same as those bad restaurants back in ‘old blighty’ that have no passion about what crap they serve)
Had overly dry grilled fish (inedible) with ‘tinned’ green beans/​carrots $ 15. Husband had the overly yellow powdered curry but like he said «well its the Brit, what do you expect» and the kids shared a dry overcooked burger.
Being British! I didn’t complain but simply said, when the waitress asked if I was finished (with a strange voice as I had eaten the small salad and two tiny bites of fish) that «it was way too overcooked to eat» OK she said producing the bill, no apology, no removing the item, no pride in her job or the establishment she serves.
I was a little annoyed my husband still paid a 20% tip but apparently «its not her fault the kitchen can’t cook a simple piece of fish» but maybe checking back once with the customer or showing some emotion when you remove a full hardly touched meal, one would think that is grounds for a show of 10−15%. I know, even I can’t ever give 0%.
Brit you ought to be ashamed and just hope you give a damn about reviews

I was going to write a detailed review but I’ll try to keep it short.
Staff didn’t know if they were coming or going, waited 15 mins just to get a drink by which time we were ready to order food and the waitress just walked off. Drinks came and I’d asked for no ice. surprise it had ice and as I was paying $ 3.75 for a soda with ’ limited refills ’ I asked her to correct it. Still hadn’t taken our food order by this point. The place is kinda spendy (if you hadn’t worked that out by the soda) for pub grub, $ 9 for a kids grilled cheese as an example.
Anyway after ordering food and a 45 minute wait and still no food we left. As did a few other people seated near us who were complaining about the wait (btw they were not that busy) all the while the manager was walking around eating fries. Bad bad customer service, can’t comment on the food as we never had any and being an expat I’d wanted to give this place a try. Do yourself a favor and walk a few doors up to the taqueria, food after 5 minutes and much more wallet friendly.

My bank and the police department are investigating this place right now. Came here with a friend and had a few drinks. Got pretty drunk, I’ll admit. When time came to pay, the bartender takes my card and walks in the back. Weird to me, but I didn’t think much of it. About five minutes later I say to my friend, «where is he with my card, why is it taking so long?» Then he comes back. I sign and leave. Couple days later I go grocery shopping and my card gets declined. I’m not rich but I know I can afford $ 50 at Trader Joes. Call my bank only to find out that someone was trying to use a physical card with my name and card number on it in New York. They ask me if I’ve been anywhere I don’t frequent and I told them, yes. Only place I’ve been to that I’ve never been before it a bar on almaden expressway. My bank canceled the card, thank goodness and we contacted the San Jose police department. Be careful with this bar. And to the bartender who took my card, I’d be careful too. From what I understand this isn’t the first time. But I’m betting it will be your last.

So apparently the service drops to almost nonexistent when there are more than ten people there.
To top it off, they now charge for refills on sodas? I mean come on. We spent over $ 300 on mediocre food and they are petty enough to charge for 3 cents of syrup and carbonated water. Do I care about paying for a refill? Maybe only because I feel that it’s a joke to charge for them. The best part is that the sodas are $ 3.75 each! Keep it classy!
I used to come here often without any issues. This place is now very poorly managed.
I guess you can rate it higher for beer… if you get it before it is warm and flat.

My boyfriend and I came here last Friday for lunch after I got my hair done. Neither of us had been here before but it looked interesting and there was outdoor seating so we decided to try it out.
We walk in and were told to grab a seat anywhere that we’d like. Then, came time to order; the menu didn’t have much that caught my attention so, I settled on a bowl of clam chowder and my boyfriend ordered the chicken pie with a side of mashed potatoes.
My clam chowder was awful, completely inedible; the clams were so chewy that I couldn’t even swallow it, not to mention that I was chomping on sand as well. It totally bummed me out. I took three bites and that was all I could manage.
As for the chicken pie, it really wasn’t anything special. Not a whole lot of flavor and the same goes for the mashed potatoes. Needless to say, my boyfriend and I weren’t thrilled with our experience and ended up leaving with a table full of awful food. To me, it seems like this is the type of place that’s better to have drinks rather than a meal.
Will avoid in the future.

Had Cornish pastie and chips.
The Cornish pastie was good as were the chips/​fries. But the vegetables were horrible. Im guessing they were frozen vegetables that had been cooked in a microwave, soggy and tasteless. All three of us didn’t touch them, and I’m sure everyone else does the same.
My advice to The Britannia Arms, just don’t serves those vegetables, or cook nice fresh vegetables.
Serving those frozen vegetables is a big negative to what was otherwise a good and tasty meal.
My Moscow mule was very good.

My boyfriend and I decided to come here to eat and drink since I’ve never been to this location before. We sat ourselves and shortly after our server came by to take our drink/​food order. We had already decided on food but for drinks not yet. The server looked impatient when we were trying to decide on beer):
I ordered the Britannia mixed salad ($ 6) and a cup of the clam chowder. The salad was fresh and delicious and pretty big for $ 6. The clam chowder was bomb but I wish it was hotter in temperature. It was only warm.
My pint of 805 tasted horrible. It was flat. We didn’t want to complain so my boyfriend offered to drink it but after half way he decided to order something else.
The bartender was really nice when I ordered another beer! I told her about my 805 and she apologized.
Overall, it was an okay experience.

The bouncer is a dick. We weren’t even drunk and he said we were too drunk to get in. Saving grace was the hot dog stand next door

This place is a hot mess.
First off, the good. The bartenders here are actually really quite nice! The ladies and gentlemen helping me out were always quick to get me a drink and we’re very friendly. The place itself is also big and spacious, so I didn’t feel like a sardine in a cramped can. The music was also pretty good. Plenty of space for dancing too!
Now, onto the bad. As I was walking to the washroom, one short bald but buff guy tried to randonly pick a fight with a guy I just met at the bar. There was no reason for the fight, and I had to stop it because security wasn’t there. Eventually, some other guy tried to pick a fight with my friend, but this time outside the washroom; and again, I had to intervene and stop it because the joke of security wasn’t there. At some point, the security heard of what happened half an hour later and checked up on us.
Overall; it’s a rowdy place with a bunch of trouble that serves alcohol. Good luck?

bar of the san jose Earthquakes !! My favorite soccer team!!!
They have a really cool patio and the bands here are amazing.
The sound system is incredible.
Every wednesday they have karaōke w dj hank.
This is a great place to watch the fights and sports.
Definitely a British pub, they even have the old phone booth but its a great place for st patricks day too.
The food here is amazing. I came here with a groupon and the food was excellent, still is.
They have trivia every tuesday a dance party on Fridays and saturdays seem pretty random to me.
I am probably gonna end up watching the fight here coming up.

Love this place. They have bands playing Friday’s lots of dancing. 80s live band playing tonight

Solid bar with quite the variety of beer/​cider on tap and bottles. If you grew up in the area, you’re guaranteed to have already been here a few times.
Nick,(the bartender) is a great guy and with a smile, handshake, and a beer you’ll feel right at home.

My initial impulse is to give the place three stars, but I realize that’s largely due to the discrepancy between my taste and the general public that frequents this Britannia Arms. All in all, it’s a solid bar — the food is decent, they’ve got foosball and darts, and their trivia nights aren’t a bad way to spend a Tuesday (although the questions definitely cater to an older crowd). But hey, it’s Almaden, so that’s gotta be taken into consideration. I wouldn’t come here looking for a legendary night out, but for a solid place to hang out, Britannia Arms has you covered.

I really enjoy this place because it has an extensive beer selection. They occasionally have tap takeovers (check their website for dates and events) and the food is delicious! My favorite part is that they allow dogs on the patio and being that I have a corgi and it is an English pub, it is perfect. The owner always comes out and offers water to our pup (Leonardo DiCorgio!) and is an overall nice person. The bartenders could be a bit more inviting, but they definitely get the job done!
I would say that the ambiance is more like a bar than a restaurant, as it gets pretty loud during happy hours. But if you’re going to an English pup for a quaint dinner, well then your plans are inherently flawed. If you need a good local pub with great beer, you have found your spot. The only reason I don’t give it 5 stars is that the bartenders aren’t completely familiar with all the beers on tap and a waitress once confused my order of «Dogfish Head» with a «Snakebite.» Not sure how that happened but it was certainly an experience I can laugh about! Definitely come here at least once!

I’ve been here a few times and all I can say is TERRIBLE service and the food is not worth it whatsoever. The last time I came here was on a Saturday afternoon. The servers wasted time talking with regulars rather than seating customers waiting at the door. I finally sat myself at a table near the bar waiting for a server and browsing the menu. I was waiting at my table for at least 15 minutes without any service before I decided to leave. This bar has been known to be racist by tons of customers who have had first hand experiences, and Unilocal has plenty of reviews to prove it. It’s a racist bar that avoids serving tables with any minorities. I would avoid this place unless all you want is a beer in a racist bar.

Great blond girl served us & our pooches. She gave my friendly pooches some water on a really hot day, which was a refreshing breath of air given that south San Jose seems like restaurants are not dog friendly even with a patio. Large portion of fish n chips (2 big pieces), bacon Brit burger & sweet potato fries were balls deep fried! Can’t get enough, but we ended up not finishing our food.

This place is the best hang out spot. They have a wonderful outside patio with many TVs and you can be as loud as you want to. Service isn’t wonderful, but its because they are so busy! My friends and I have spent many many nights here; probably our fav spot.

The atmosphere is nice. Cool lil spot to hangout and have a beer or cocktail. The deep fried cheesecake is amazing!

FOOD
Not really that authentic British food, but they make an effort.
Or do they? Been there half a dozen times over the years and on THREE instances one of us got FOOD POISONING. And the food was mediocre at best! Straight garbage food.
DRINKS
Ok, but service ranges from terrible to mediocre.
ATMOSPHERE
Chaos. Depends on when you show up. It could be absolutely DEAD or it would be packed and so loud you can’t hear yourself think.
But that’s not even the beginning. This establishment AND their patrons are RACIST. I’ve seen it half a dozen times. If you’re a minority who, you know, believes in being treated like an equal, good luck. The people who drink there regularly are amazingly racist (n words and other racial epithets constantly, and only gets worse during sports events), and the management not only puts up with it, but will dress people down and even kick them out if they have a big problem with it.
Just a terrible environment and unfortunate, as it only feeds into that stereotype of UK folks being racist goons. But, hey, this place richly deserves it.
The downtown location is MUCH better because there are so minorities, they can’t cater to their more racist clientele.
I would never go to this trash establishment again.
Unless, of course, you want a racist, food poisonous environment to hang out it.
No thanks. This place should be shut down.

Came to this place with some of the former co-​workers for their trivia night. It also happened to be the night of a Sharks game and I was surprised that they didn’t have the game on. So I loved that they put on the sharks game when I asked them to, but I hated that they didn’t put the sound on. As for the trivia night, our team failed epically because it asked about a bunch of older generation things that I have never even heard of. We also got some food to munch on such as the sliders. The chicken sliders were absolutely disgusting that we didn’t even bother finishing them. I much rather go to the Brit location in Downtown San Jose, because they are all about broadcasting the sports games and have way better quality of food.

Pass. We headed here specially for two reasons. One, because my coworker wanted to watch the Buffalo Bills in the Thursday NFL game and this bar was supposedly where Buffalo transplants in San Jose came. Two, a decent draft and bottle list of beers shown on their website.
Miss on both accounts. The only other patron there watching the game was wearing a Miami jersey. And our waitress was completely clueless about their beers. She could not tell us what was on draft outside of the generic English pub list on the wall (Guinness, Harp, etc). I had to show her their website on my phone and then she went to find a bottle menu. After finally asking the bartender what craft beers were on tap she came back and called them all by the brewery name only.
«We have the Sierra, a Bear Republic, and the Deschutes.» To which I reply «uh, which Deschutes?» And she says «a Stout I think?» The blank look on my face then must have prompted her to add «that’s a dark beer.» I gambled on an IPA on draft and my coworker ordered a bottle to which she brought something completely different than what he asked for.
Check please. We left at half time and headed downtown to Original Gravity for a proper craft beer experience.

I go there almost twice a week. Very good for drinks. Great service.
Outdoor terrace is perfect!
Food is just OK, nothing special and slightly overpriced.