The Pond

Have passed this bar many a time and been curious as to it’s interior, we ventured in on a wet Sunday pm and were pleasantly surprised! Friendly staff and clientelle, £6.40 for two bottles of Magners, not the cheapest but not the most expensive by any means! The seating is largely comfy leather sofas and normal bar type chairs the décor is in keeping of what the bar has been for the last x amount of years! Dare I say shabby chic??? Lots of original features and a hidden beer garden out back! Not just a few chairs and tables in a concrete yard but a well laid out purpose built area, with a BBQ! Seems like a good crowd of peeps! Well worth a visit if passing this hidden gem of a bar!!! Two amazing fish tanks and mood music! As well as a great selection of beers and ciders!

Great pub, great beer, friendly staff and fishtanks; with an atmosphere somewhere between a friendly local and an after-​club party…

If you were driving across a desert and saw a sign saying ‘Last beer in 500 miles’ then I’ve always imagined this would be that outpost. I say this as I think its a fantastic place with a friendly and very varied custom from office workers to dock workers and many more visitors throughout the town. Everyone is united by the quirky nature of the pub and the fantastic range of mainly German and Belgian beers on offer, many on tap.
If you are coming from Portobello, make sure any ladies with you know what to wear as a short skirt and long jacket is not advisable. This place sits on the edge of the Red Light district on Seafield Rd which makes for some interesting watching out the windows. In the many times we’ve walked along we have had more bother from the police kerb crawling myself and my girlfriend wondering why we were walking along at night and never had any hassle from the local prostitutes or pimps.
Lots of board games to play too make for an excellent evening

This is a great wee place with a fantastic beer gaden. I love it in the summer, although the crowd can sometimes get a bit rough. The drinks are cheap though, and the staff are usually nice and friendly/

Whilst in the middle of Leith-​nowhere, The Pond still manages to attract a merry band of revellers any time of the day, any day of the week.
A workers pub for many, being filled with a mix-​mash of market researchers from the nearby Ipsos Mori to the dock workers at the nearby Leith shore, it is worthy of a trek off the beaten Leith track.
A fantastic selection of wheat beers and European ales which make Pivo’s selection of far flung, ‘point instead of pronouncing’ beers look distinctly Fischer Price in comparison. The highlight would be the frequent rotation of one of the beer pumps for hefty (5%+) lager poured to perfection which would take a Ryanair flight to find anywhere else, alongside others such as cult Tennants to cloudy Addlestones cider.
Whilst a fantastically varied selection of malts et al rest on the shelves, reasonably priced normal bar fair nestles in the hidden fridge in one corner ensuring the atmosphere can still be enjoyed by those who may have questioned initially walking beyond Wetherspoon’s ‘Foot Of The Walk’.
The pub is ran the way you would love every pub to be ran, encapsulated in a Thursday night scenario recently. A handful of us, after a visit to the nearby Mongolian buffet restaurant Khublai Khan’s, were the only remaining patrons after last orders had been rang at 12:45. This was even after the pub barely reaching a dozen in capacity for most of our visit, but we weren’t hurried to the door at all but simply politely informed that kick out would be 1:20, by which time we had enjoyed our drinks and said our goodbye. No hussle and bussle from the bar staff, no downing of half a pint of fantastic German Oktoberfest beer, no regrets about not making a final visit to the gents.
In addition, an all year open beer garden may be exposed to the unsheltered shore elements adds to the quirks which include a chalkboard wall above the gents urinals, a laptop ‘jukebox’ and two inquisitive fish-​tanks sparking the watery decoration theme.
A hidden gem that will probably stay that way.
And is all the better for it.