Flora

If you’ve been waiting three hours for your meal at the Woodville then pop along to Flora, they tend to get your meal to you in a reasonable amount of time and offer similar, hearty fare.
It’s not so much of a student bar and has a regular batch of locals to lend a more authentic feel to the place. It’s not upmarket but is a friendly, cheap, traditional bar.
Bars such as the Flora are the kind of mainstay, sturdy inn that doesn’t do anything particularly special but is popular nevertheless. It’s proof that a bar doesn’t need to have moody lighting and chairs shaped as hippos to attract an audience and simple, typical looks are just fine.
The flirtatious barman (not with me I might add) looks like he’s having a good time, and from the look of it, so are the customers. There’s something to be said for a nice atmosphere.

I hadn’t been to the Flora for years then I had to go to a «Works Do» and actually, surprise surprise, I had a god time. Like a lot of pubs in Cathays it’s got the split personality feel of «an old man’s pub» in the bar and students a go –go in the lounge. During term times it can get pretty full in there as it’s such a conveniant location.
But it feels like the staff are working hard to give the pub a coherent personality. One of the things is that they have concentrated on bringing the food up to scratch so people pop in during the day.
I had a really good meal here. I ordered a pie which was huge and everyone’s meals were a generous, portion size. The table was groaning under the weight of al the food which was also really reasonably priced.
The drinks were cheap too so it was a good way to start the evening.

The Flora finds itself in a pretty handy location, a decent amount of streets to itself from which to pool locals and a large nearby student population to boot. But it seems Brains are giving up on this little pub, by withdrawing Sky Sports in August and bumping the prices up on the menu (but the food was pretty cheap in the first place). There are also rumours of a Wetherspoons going into Woodville Road, which could do for The Crwys too.
But as of the here and now, The Flora is a good, solid pub with a couple of cask Brains beers that I never see anyone drink and a Fosters tap that definitely does get drunk. Steer clear of the 45 though. There’s a good quiz on Thursdays, one pound in, fifty quid prize, as long as Neil the quizmaster can read the questions. There’s a slightly wonky pool table, an It-​Box and a patio garden outback with a covered area and a barbeque which gets fired up occasionally. They also have a rubbish cricket team.

The Flora in my eyes will always be remembered for international rugby as you can be sure when Wales are playing this pub is jammed! There are plenty of TV’s to watch sport and if you get there early enough you may be able to grab one of the comfy leather sofas. The staff are incredibly friendly and like the other pubs in Cathays visiting this pub is a rite of passage for any student studying Cardiff and high I recommend their food as their burgers are pretty tasty.
There is also a small outside area for smokers which believe has patio heaters for when it get slightly chilly. The only I can really report on as being bad about the pub is the toilet has seen better days and could do with a refurbishment or even just a lick of paint.
There is always something going on at the Flora whether it be a quiz night, karaōke, live sport screening, poker nights and even live music. What will make you keep on coming back is the friendly atmosphere, cheap drinks and the rolling rota of fun nights.

The Flora is an awkward little pub sat between two worlds; situated in the middle of Student-​ville, Cardiff it wants to cater to the younger crowd whilst still hanging onto the regulars who’ve apparently been going there since the eighteen hundreds. It’s marginally successful in this, but at the cost of never truly capturing either crowd. The usual punters are a scattershot mix of four or five student groups for whom this is the closest pub, and the usual mix of oddball regulars who amiably pester the barstaff and other customers with war stories.
With a large bar stocked with a wide variety of all kinds of drinks, dart boards, jukeboxes, pool tables and a leather-​couched yuppie-​lounge area, it clearly has aspirations to be something more hip than it is, but you get the sense that it’s never fully into this idea. You get the feeling that it likes it the way it is, and that’s certainly the case for me. Much like the Poet’s Corner on City Road, it is one of the only pubs that maintains enough volume to seem interesting, but is still quiet enough to have interesting conversation in.

When I lived on Flora Street this pub was my local, just a few doors down from our house, and we often went there for a drink or two on week nights. If I hadn’t lived so close, I would probably never have been there, because it’s not somewhere that really stands out from the crowd in this area.
It’s a fairly compact Victorian-​era pub with a mix of traditional and contemporary décor inside, attracting a mainly studenty clientele thanks to its Cathays location. It has some soft leather sofas for lounging about on, a pool table, and a separate dining area. I haven’t eaten here, but friends who have say it’s good food and a varied menu, so possibly worth a try.
The best thing about the Flora is its quiz nights, which are pretty popular (get there early for a table) and a good laugh — and the people who run it are really friendly.

The Flora is another one of those pubs in the Cathays area that is consistently full of students. This pub is relatively small and can become a little like a sardine tin when the students are in freshers week.
This is a popular spot of pub golf and drinking games and the like, and on popular nights you might well be better suited elsewhere if it’s stimulating conversation that you’re after.
Classic and traditional interior and fairly priced drinks are a boon to this place, and decent food is served up quickly (very quickly, actually). Despite this, there is nothing particularly special about this establishment.

The Flora is a little bit like Laney from She’s All That — it seems like a little bit of a loser, at first. The lame, slightly outcast pub. This mainly comes from people who say ‘Oh, shall we go to the Woodville, the George or the Crwys?’ Poor old Flora; she’s always left out.
Please do take the time to help her out — you definitely won’t regret it.
The food is excellent and the drinks are really cheap. I think it’s also one of the pubs that you can use your yellow card in (available at many pubs around the area for a couple of pounds) so the drinks are EVEN cheaper!
The service is excellent, mostly students working in their local to make ends meet. Everyone’s happy to be there, everyone’s friendly and welcoming. All in all, a lovely pub.
And so, just like Laney, it deserves to be popular and loved. I’m voting it for homecoming queen.