Janis P.
The Old White Lion in East Finchley is a family friendly pub with a beer garden summer BBQs, plenty of space and decent food. The pub is right next door to East Finchley tube station which makes it the ideal place to meet friends who are arriving by tube.
It’s also only a minute’s walk from Cherry Tree Wood playground, so a good spot for mums to grab a hearty lunch.
This is a favourite bolthole on rainy weekends when we are desperate to get out of the house. The Old White Lion is a geat place to meet friends and has plenty of room for buggies and prams. On cold days they light the log fire and on hot days there’s a small but stylish beer garden. We took our newborn baby here and were made to feel very welcome.
There are comfy leather sofas and upholstered chairs, you order food at the bar so you don’t have to wait ages to be served and there’s a good choice of meals – everything from fishfinger sandwiches and burgers to roast dinners. They also serve breakfast. The one down point is that there aren’t any baby changing facilities but luckily we’ve never been caught out. On a weekday lunchtime it’s fairly quiet so it would be a good venue for groups of mums to meet up. If it is raining we drive right up to the front door and I run out with the baby in the car seat while my partner parks the car. When friends come over to visit by tube I arrange to meet them in the pub which is a stone’s throw from the station – they don’t have to hang around and I can get the drinks in and choose a comfy seat in a quiet corner.
This is a nice pub, with good food, friendly staff and lots of space, but there are no changing facilities and they don’t have any high chairs, so I wouldn’t exactly describe it as baby friendly