Gunn Street
Reading
The Purple Turtle has been around for over ten years now, believed to have started off as Happy Pizza on London Street. Since becoming the Purple Turtle it has even managed to breed! Yes it has now offspring in Islington, Camden and Oxford. Very popular with students and locals alike. It boasts a large selection of beers and cocktails from all over the universe.
They have a late license, it's free to get in and they're open late every night (or morning as the case may be).
The bouncers aren't too much of a problem either, but you do seem to get the air of "You can't make an omelette without breaking heads" from them at times.
Fit bar staff, lots of regulars, not so clean as you worry about dropping used butts on the floor but clean enough to hover over the pan in. Also they have a lot of gigs there and DJs in the downstairs bar most nights.
Happy hour 9pm til 10pm, cocktails and a few beers are a bit cheaper then, so it's almost worth it as part of a crawl!
If anyone wants to comment on this or any other bar in Reading, that's Reading as in RG1 not further afield, e-mail me your review and I'll print it.
Review by - Mr Madman 2002 - sent in Feb 2nd 2003
Great pub, open til 2am every day, free to get in, no queues, fit bar staff who you can pull if you catch them in their first week, then they're diseased and unuseable, trust me I gave them most of their diseases!!! I worked there cos it takes them ages to notice the fake NI number and you can still get the dole, wicked! Oh and housing benefit if you run out of tents to steal. Lots of funny graffiti in the toilets eg (durex machine in blokes bog) "Durex - because feeling is everything" nicely followed by "especially for blind people!", oh and the ever gut wrenching "toilet tennis look left, toilet tennis look right", apparently the more times you look the drunker you are, which is always a good beer barometer.
If you do go there look out for me, but avoid Steve Norris at all costs!!! He'll try it on with your girlfriend if she is under 16 and you'll want to hit him, even if you are single! You guys rule! But not my world!!!
