Located just down from the fire station on Pilgrim Street, and on the doorstep of the 55 Degrees North building, The Market Lane (AKA ‘the Monkey Bar’) is one of the few remaining traditional pubs in city.

With mostly aging clientele, it still has a degree of youthful vigour in it’s friendly bar staff and isn’t to be dismissed on your pub crawl of the classic bars of Newcastle.

The Venue
Inside, its decor is not as ‘old man bar’ as you'd expect and its recently undergone a refurbishment. At the front is the smaller of two seating areas, with the usual pub chairs and tables and a wide screen TV on the far wall. Past the bar takes you into the more spacious ‘lounge’, with rather recent leather seating – a factor that actually makes this a comfortable watering hole.

Unfortunately the toilets are a major let down. When they are cleaned, it’s with industrial bleach that spills across the floor (among other things) making this a potentially hazardous pit-stop. You’ll be lucky to get hot water from the basin and the hand dryer, if it works, isn’t capable of drying the desert air, let alone soggy digits. Why, when the bar looks clean and simply laidout, couldn’t this have been included in the refurbishment plans?

The People
The staff are friendly and while you are highly unlikely to encounter any trouble in The Monkey Bar, it’s not the friendliest of atmospheres. That’s not to say the regulars are unwelcoming, just very quiet and self-contained. The only outbursts you will hear come from either the older ladies continuing to bemoan the smoking ban or the heavy gamblers following the horses on the TV’s racing channel.

The old jukebox, packed full of classic albums from the fifties to present day, has been removed in the recent refurbishment (a real shame), but it’s digital replacement has more than enough good tunes to keep your session in song. The busiest times are Friday and Saturday nights, mainly for those approaching middle-age to congregate and gossip either before or after their weekly Bigg Market pilgrimage. Match days will see plenty of Newcastle’s famous Toon Army both before and during the games. Other nights are mixed, but are usually on the quiet side.

The Food and Drink
The beers on tap are good quality and very reasonably priced. Many of the beers are the ‘extra cold’ option, certainly in the case of Guinness, John Smiths, Carling and Kronenbourg. For ciders, there’s woodpeckers on tap and Bulmers in a bottle. The wine and spirit selection is basic, and cocktails certainly aren’t an option here.

This is by far one of the best value pubs in the Newcastle but the compromise lies in the distinct lack of food. Just a few paltry packets of nuts, and while there are meals served between 11am and 3pm, it’s the basic microwave pub grub of old at best, and chopped up garlic sausages on the bar at worst.

The Last Word
The charm of this pub lies in the old-fashioned ethic of enjoying cheap booze without disturbance. This is what the Market Lane can deliver with aplomb, but don’t rule it out as a potential meeting place for friends. The music is good, and just because other groups won’t hassle you doesn’t mean there isn’t discussion going on. For an old-school Geordie bar there’s a remarkable ‘live and let drink’ policy at the Monkey Bar. And there even are still a few of the (once many) cuddly toy monkeys behind the bar…

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