The Osbornes Bar

Drinks are super cheap on happy hour, had good atmosphere and the place is very funky

I am truly disgusted at the treatment my sister received from the ‘upmarket’ bar of Osbornes in purely because she has Down Syndrome. My family and I, a total of 7 people, visited the bar on Saturday 15^th May to celebrate my brothers 21^st birthday.
Ten minutes after walking into the premises, past the doormen, and arriving at the busy bar and ordering 7 drinks, my sister was approached by one of the doormen and asked how old she was. After telling the doorman she was 19, he then — in the most unsavory manner — asked her to repeat herself, under the pretence that he could not understand her. I will point out she speaks English and not alien.
When my brother and father repeated what she said, the doorman asked them to essentially back off as he was asking her. Luckily she was oblivious to the scene that was being created in her honour. He then proceeded to ask her for ID and said the manager had sent him over to ask. I can only assume due to this fact, that in the ‘upmarket, cosmopolitan’ establishment Osbornes claim to be, my sister was not welcome due to the fact she has a disability.
Even to someone who is not the brightest tool in the box, someone with a Learning Disability does not own a vast range of identification for instance, a driving license. I will also point out the fact that she was with her mother, father and siblings would also indicate she was not underage. I can empathise with asking for ID, as I have also worked in bars and completely understand the risk of serving someone underage however, this was clearly discrimination and left some shocked onlookers.
We were then asked to leave the premises which was beyond embarrassing.
Hand on heart, my sister has never endured such vile treatment in all her life and it has left me feeling sick to my stomach that it happened. I could appreciate if this had happened if she was out with a group of young girls — which wouldn’t happen anyway — but we are a hard-​working, respectable family.
We are currently awaiting response from Osbornes but as it was the manager who asked for us to be removed, I can only assume it will be them who reply.
We have never come across anything like this before, I personally get ID’d on a regular basis for cigarettes and alcohol in shops but this was different and has left us somewhat uneasy.
Needless to say, we will not be visiting such a pretentious, horrible establishment again.

Living in jesmond is a marmite existence, you either love it or you hate it, I often jumped between the camps while living their, great on a weekend and a nice area but rubbish at 3am on a Monday when rah students are singing rugby songs, Osbornes is the quintessential jesmond bar, Happy hour is great and the food is decent, but it is far too busy for my liking during term time, great if you’re on a night out but awful if you want a few drinks after work without dealing with the student population. One of those places that is great for what it is but really poor as an all rounder.

I visited Osborne’s for the first time on Friday nite. We met there for drinks before our meal elsewhere.
We had three rounds. Two were free and one was £1 for each drink. This was due to the button game that is played during happy hour. Fantastic!
It was very busy — even at 7pm — so we had to stand propped up as all of the seats were taken.
Modern music played — tho was a little strange, seeming to play a couple of tracks in a row, of one artists!

This is the biggest bar on osbourne road. Very popular with both locals and the student crowd. There is a large beer garden outside which comes in handy as this is one of the busy bars and often gets packed out. Drinks are good value, especially during happy hours.

This place feels more like a pub than a bar. Its croud tends to be slightly older than Blanc or Spy opposite the road. They also do food and for a non Italian place the pizzas are surprisingly good.
As all the other places on Osborne Road it often gets full but it’s probably the biggest bar on the strip and has a big outdoor area. Great place to have a drink before heading nextdoor to its sister venue ‘Scalini’s’ for supper. It’s on the west side of the road though so if you want a drink in the summer sun it does tend to get shady and chillier than the bars on the other side of the road.

Polo Bar is the bar upstairs from Italiain restraunt Scalini’s. The two are run by the same people and often during busy periods the restraunt spills into the upstairs bar. Polo is ususally very quiet and is used predominantely by the people eating below and the drinks match the slightly higher prices of the restraunt below in comparison to the rest of Osborne Road.