Windmill Taverns

Friendly and prompt service. Lively sports bar but you feel welcome just eating and soaking in the atmosphere. Decent Thai food. Pad thai had lots of veggies.

I think I preferred the Windmill before its renovation — it used to be a non-​assuming old-​school pub attracting a mixed crowd of theatre goers waiting for their plays to start (it is right next door to the Young Vic) and guys enjoying a quick pint after work and/​or while following the football which is screend on several screens dotted around the bar.
It has had a makeover but really nothing has changed. But forget the idea of a quiet Sunday afternoon … we actually came especially for a Thai lunch as our first choice the King’s Arms down the road (the Windmill’s brother) reverts to traditional Sunday roasts on Sundays which is a shame when your friends are vegetarian.
It is so conveniently located, I am bound to end up at the Windmill again, but it just isn’t all that special enough to make it a more positive choice.

Another popular South Bank hang out among working professionals.
Serves decent Thai food lunch, too.
Outdoor seating is out front and always packed in the summer months.
Ideal place to grab a drink before catching a show at one of The Cut’s few theaters.

I feel awkward saying this but I really did not like this place. I wanted to. In fact, I’d been here about 18 months ago and remembered it as being far better.
Firstly my drink tasted sketchy as hell. A diet coke apparently… but if you gave me the glass and asked me to ideitify it by taste I wouldn’t have guessed. It tasted really carbon-​y like sparkling water. It overwhelmed any other flavour in there.
My boyfriend’s glass had lipstick on it… not a great start.
We were there to eat because we were in the area… we had wanted to get food at the Young Vic but it was closed so this seemed reasonable. The Thai food was decidedly ropey, tofu-​from-​a-​can ropey. Rice that had dried out and clumped together not in that lovely moist fragrant sticky rice way… In a way that suggested it was made yesterday and given a quick spell in the microwave. And the hot spots on the inside of the dry, slightly crunchy pile of rice seemed to agree. My curry was a plate of bought-​in tofu and the limp, claggy peppers/​onions/​carrots that are generally de rigeur in all asian dishes where there’s a failure of imagination.
The positives?
The décor was fine, atmosphere ok. I’m not a fan of sports on TVs at all times but that’s just me.
The meal only set us back £16 for both of us so it was bad food but at least it wasn’t expensive bad food!
Service was generally good.
Will I go back? Definitely not. There’s too much good stuff around here for me to return to this place.

This is the same chain as Jack’s down the road, so pricing is very similar but as this is a pub and Jack’s is more of a bar, some have reviewed that this is at the pricey end. The great thing about this place is that it’s not rammed and it doesn’t take 20 minutes to get a drink. Add to this a chilled atmosphere, quirky décor and perfectly good thai food and I’d say it’s definitely worth a look.

Popped in after a fab evening at the Young Vic Theatre. Just fancied a quick drink before heading home and didn’t really want to venture far and risk hitting the Friday night mayhem in other bars.
Was busy but not packed and after about 10 minutes we managed to bag a table for the four of us.
London prices — as expected — has a nice, cosy interior with posters covering the ceiling and old-​fashioned lampshades, also has some outside seating and TVs showing sport.
That’s all I have to say really — it did what it said on the tin, i.e. served alcohol, and that’s all we really wanted. Nice atmosphere, not too rowdy, and a handy spot after the theatre. Done.

In a kind of not quite hungry enough for lunch limbo, a quick drink was had at The Windmill. My friend has had some pretty shocking experiences of the pub, but it was either this or The Ring down the road and I really don’t like The Ring so I won.
It was fairly quiet with most people sitting outside in the sun (usually lovely, I’d imagine) but a mild hangover kept us inside. They’ve got a pretty good selection of drinks (Crabbie’s, yay). Barmaid was friendly too. I’d come back. It wouldn’t be my first choice (and perhaps not even my second or third), but I think it’s a smidge better than a three star boozer.

It’s a sunny day in Waterloo, i wanna go to lunch with my co-​worker but I don’t wanna spend a lot and he wants to sit outside and drink a beer. Where to go where to go. the Windmill of course.
Everytime I had walked the windmill on a lunch break I had always seen the older drunk at lunch crowd, so I thought that it might be a bit of a grimey pub, but i was pleasantly surprised! do NOT judge a pub by it’s outside patrons…
The inside was surprisingly nice but the highlight HAD to be the thai lunch!!! It was alarmingly good. Every bite we took we kept saying «wow! this is great!» b/​c you would not expect such nice thai food from such a pub. the best part was that not only was it yummy, it was also only £6.90 for a 2 course meal! I was so full by the end that there was no getting me back into the office. but once I did FINALLY return you better believe i told EVERYONE about it. so make sure that you go before the crowds hit. (avoid fridays)

Great pub to visit when on the South Bank, maybe en route to the theatre.
The walls are covered in photographs of actors which makes for a very intimate atmosphere.
Can get very busy towards the end of the week.
They serve really good thai food — the steamed fish is particularly nice

Nice venue just down from Waterloo Station for my hockey team to grab a drink before our end of season curry. On this balmy spring evening, the bar was filled mainly with suited after-​hours workers. Prices were reasonable for this part of London.
Enough indoor seating for our group of 14 to grab a large corner for ourselves. The big TV screens enabled the Liverpool and Chelsea fans to keep abreast of the Champion League’s action. Little noisy to chat but we managed.
Pleasant place to spend a couple of hours, especially if you like footy.

My memories of windmills involve elaborate mini golf courses, the Dutch countryside, taking my pet ostrich for walks, giving a concert with Edith Piaf in front of a crowd of 100,975,465.5 people and this pub.
Twas a Sunday night when I went to the Windmill Tavern, and all was well. The wind was not blowing and the mills were not grinding their daily bushel of corn, but I was meeting up with a friend for drinks.
We walked into the Windmill. Fortunately, the blades froze in time, and we did not get sliced into more pieces than an apple pie being shared among a family with 20 kids. Inside among the footy-​playing televisions and theater poster sporting walls, my friend and I, glad of our un-​bladed journey each got a glass of wine. The wine was good. It generally is if it isn’t from a box and if it isn’t from your socks. We sat down at a table and drank and talked.
In the warmer weather, people often sit outside on the picnic benches striping the Windmill Tavern’s front sidewalk.
If you’re looking for a place to watch some sports (and I’m not talking about walls sporting posters), this is a nice place. It’s not ultra-​special for any reason, but it’s A-​ok and since I live near by, I’ll probably go back from time to time.

There are a number of pubs in the area that serve Thai food, and this is probably the best. Excellent value food, decent selection of drinks, even one or two ales. Just a relaxed place to grab lunch!