On my way through Newcastle city centre to try out the new pub just opened by Greggs, the baker, I passed a boozer of the old school, the kind of place where men sit over their pints like Inuits at ice-holes.
On the rainy street, the cellarman was taking delivery of a large quantity of kegs. I wondered what they reminded me of and I realised it was the scene in Jaws when Hooper and Quint are stowing floats aboard the Orca, enough to weary their monstrous quarry after it takes the bait.
If this pub resembled a whaler, or perhaps a sharker, the Golden Flake Tavern, as Greggs have called their joint, is more like a pleasure steamer or cruise ship.
The pub is on the first floor of Fenwick’s department store: like Greggs, a north-east institution. The vibe is the rugby-club bar, with its dark brown furniture and prints of early motor cars. A collection of Toby jugs leers from a cabinet. There are families, couples, old dears taking a breather from the shopping and trying out “this new place” as a change from the M&S cafe.
No, it’s only when you study “the offer” of the Golden Flake that you see what a boldly diverse, colour-saturated – and highly calorific – world we could be living in. It gives the lie to the old joke that a Geordie is someone who thinks “metrosexual” means a blow job on the city’s underground.
The pub serves blush-hued Pink Jammie Pale Ale (£6.50 a pint), with base notes of doughnut, as well as a matching cocktail, the Pink Jammie Fizz (lemonade, prosecco and Greggs’ patent syrupy mix: £11.50 a pop). On date night, they’re the perfect his ’n’ hers tipples. They would go well with a Barbie-themed hen do, or stag. Also on tap is Gosforth 1939 Stottie Lager, a bespoke brew named after the place and date that the bakery chain was founded (also £6.50 a pint).
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But what are the steak bake people doing getting mixed up in the hospitality racket in the first place? They say they’re offering a “fresh twist to the traditional British pub (with) a unique Greggs experience”. The Golden Flake is a pop-up pub, open until February with an option to extend. One London-based food writer declined to make the 500-mile round trip, calling it a publicity stunt. Admittedly the chain has form here: it has offered candlelit dinners on Valentine’s night and egged on Piers Morgan to sample a vegan sausage roll live on TV (he spat it out).
Against that, there’s the menu at the Golden Flake. There is the gruff and manly sausage roll, like Nick Knowles in a pastry gilet (served with Bloody Mary ketchup, £4.25). But there is also the Pink Jammie Trifle (£6.50), an extraordinary dessert that consists of a doughnut sunk in jelly and topped with custard, cream, and pink frosting the colour and consistency of your nan’s Euthymol toothpaste.
It’s a dish that Willy Wonka would be proud of, rotting your gnashers but giving them a polish at the same time. The Golden Flake samples the cuisine of the building site and the nursery alike.
Back on the street, where a man was taking an inordinately long time over a leak behind the bins, I told a woman that my lunch at the pub came to £29. She pulled a face. “Too expensive, but I do go in there,” she said, waving at the shop immediately next door to the pub. It was another Greggs (there are 21 branches in the city).
I told a bloke in a hi-vis jacket about the baker’s new venture. “Do they do alcohol? I’ll try it!” he enthused. If you ask me, Greggs have done themselves no harm by taking colas (and beer) to Newcastle.
Stephen Smith is a journalist and broadcaster
