United Kingdom Windsor

The King and Castle Windsor, England

a group of snowmen on a bar

Windsor can be a fun place for a pub crawl primarily due to a dozen pubs within actual crawling distance of each other, if your capacity to walk is impaired before your capacity to drink stops. Hold out a cup on your crawl between pubs and you might even pick up some change toward the next pint.

Windsor High Street is covered with the belongings and cups of local rough sleepers.

a pile of blankets and other items outside a mcdonald's restaurant
High Street Windsor, England rough sleeper’s home in front of McDonald’s and next to King & Castle pub.

The King & Castle – Wetherspoon pub, Windsor Thames Street

a sign on a window
The King & Castle Windsor Thames Street. Line outside is long Windsor Castle ticket line.

High Street turns into Thames Street as it winds around Windsor Castle.

a group of snowmen on a bar
King & Castle ales were easily the lowest priced pints in town we found.

The King & Castle on Windsor Thames Street was our local for three days. Regular pint prices at King & Castle were £1.00 or more less than the average price of a pint at a Windsor or Eton pub.

I dubbed Windsor the £5.00 pint town with the average price of a pint across the other 11 pubs we visited pricing within pennies of £10.00 per round for Kelley and me.

a glass of beer on a table
Abbot Ale £2.89 pints at King & Castle are cheapest pints I recall in UK in recent years.

The real deal with King & Castle was even cheaper pints when ordering burgers, pizza and some other daily special meals. TripAdvisor The King and Castle Windsor #9 of 18 Quick Bites.

The pub was very efficient with meal orders prepaid at the register and numbered tables in the pub given to the server for your food delivery. Being someone who gets antsy waiting to pay a restaurant bill, the prepaid arrangement of King & Castle was right for my style. You can also download the app and order online.

a plate of food and a glass of beer
The King and Castle Windsor – Curry Thursday Indian food £8.70 with Heineken. Meal deal price reduced pint price from £4.15 to £1.50.

Unfortunately Kelley’s favorite beer Stella Artois was not on sale as part of King and Castle meal deals. Yet, Stella £4.20/pint was still a lower price than any other pint we bought in a different Windsor pub.

The King & Castle is a Wetherspoon pub. This pub is the largest in Windsor with three floor levels and stays open later than other local pubs with midnight weekday and 1am weekend hours. There is also a seasonal large garden patio.

a restaurant with a menu
The King and Castle Windsor
a group of people in a bar
The King & Castle Windsor second floor view

We ate breakfast at The King & Castle every morning as it was only about 150 meters from Clarion Collection Harte & Garter Hotel, our hotel for four nights.

a plate of food with a egg and beans
King & Castle Windsor small breakfast £2.90
a plate of food with a fork and knife
King & Castle Windsor Mushroom Benedict £4.30 (Add £0.50 for unlimited coffee/tea).
a plate of food on a table
The King & Castle Windsor lamb shank dinner £10.99.

The King & Castle was our most frequented pub in Windsor. Over the course of three days we went to ten other pubs and one fine dining restaurant – Bel and the Dragon.

a building with a sign on the front
Bel & The Dragon TripAdvisor #33 of 181 restaurants in Windsor
a plate of food on a table
Bel and the Dragon scallops £14.00

Kelley had mussels for £11.00.

a bowl of food next to a bowl of food
Bel and the Dragon brussels sprouts, creme fraiche and bacon £4.50; cauliflower, smashed garlic and pecarino £4.50.

That was our one fine dining experience in Windsor to make up for Kelley not getting a Christmas evening dinner in a pub on the day we arrived in London. We enjoyed the Ble and the Dragon meal, but £45.00 a dinner is not the kind of daily expense I budget for on trips. The King & Castle was a good place for dinner and beer on other nights for £20-25.

Our other 10 pubs we experienced were pretty much limited to beer. We tried most of the Windsor pubs around the castle and some of those were very charming. I’ll put together another photo essay of those other Windsor and Eton £5 per pint pubs.

4 Comments

  • bluecat January 10, 2019

    ” £5.00 pint town”

    Whatever happened to “a pint’s a pound the world around”? this was true in both definitions of the word back when I first visited England!

    Also, “sleeping rough” is probably better than the American equivalent “homeless”—or do we really have an equivalent term? (“homeless” could imply sleeping at a shelter…)

  • bluecat January 10, 2019

    Wanted to add…save for the one with scallops, those food pics are enough to get me to NOT visit Windsor again soon. 😮

  • Vinyl Slider January 11, 2019

    Thanks for the write-up!

  • Ric Garrido January 14, 2019

    @bluecat – ‘rough sleepers’ is the British term I heard frequently this trip.

    My interest is more on eating than fine dining when I travel. The King and Castle was a bit light on vegetables, except for Thursday curry day. There are plenty of restaurants in Windsor and Eton for good food. Not spending an extra $30 or $40 per day on dining pays for my next ticket to Europe.

    In Amsterdam my diet included a daily all vegetable Wok to Walk 5.90 EUR stir fry bowl for better nutrition than Windsor.

    One of the issues with Windsor is I never saw a major grocery store until the bus ride out of town. No refrigerator in the room made it easier to simply eat out. The King and Castle was preferable to McDonald’s, Subway or Krispy Kreme places also around the hotel.

    Sitting at home right now eating a spinach and Dungeness crab omelet I made for about $3.00. The less I spend on dining while traveling leaves more money for fine dining in the comfort of my home.

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