The Wash Bar

I’ve been in Wash Bar a few times now and I still wasn’t quite sure how to review it.
It’s a fairly busy bar but you can usually find somewhere to prop yourself up with a drink (except during festival when it’s heaving — because it’s right next to a venue and anyway everywhere in town is mobbed over festival). They sell a good range of drinks (I could choose my brand of gin) and the prices are what you’d expect.
I’ve had the food here, and there’s nowt wrong with it — arrives quickly and hit the spot (mmmm, nachos!)
Staff have always been pleasant to me, and I never find the music too obtrusive. All plus points.
The summation of this review? An adequate bar for an adequate drink with your adequate mates. Nothing special, but that’s okay.

Can I just say «ditto» on Paddy H’s review of this spot?
I found myself in The Wash Bar last week for a night of musical bingo with T in the Pub and i’m going to be honest, I too had heard none too pleasant things about this little pub, so I was more than a little apprehensive. But you know what? It’s not half bad.
Most of the fuss about this place seems to be surrounding how busy it is, but on a Sunday evening, it was pretty quiet and therefore, quite pleasant. The place isn’t going to win any interior design awards any time soon, nor is it doing anything particularly extraordinary with their menu but the staff were pleasant, the food came fast, the nachos were good and the prices were reasonable. Plus, they have a little patio outside where you can plunk with a pint and watch the tourists try and figure out that intersection… which is pretty entertaining.
Would I rush back here? Nah. But if I lived in and around this spot, it wouldn’t be crossed off my list and I could definitely see myself plunking down here on a quiet afternoon when I need a pint without the bells and whistles (or crowds) of other places in the area. And should I find myself heading back here in the future, i’d be completely fine with that, because at the end of the day, any spot with beer and half decent nachos is ok in my books.
PS. However: I do agree with the Sara C’s note on the weird column in the bathroom. It’s terrifyingly confusing because there is a mirror attached to it and I walked into it… twice… sober. So be warned.

You know, i’ve heard many a bad thing about this bar, and it seems a lot of that is compounded by the reviews it has here.
That all said, I was here on a sunday evening for a wee Unilocaly quiz thing, and I was quite pleasantly surprised by the place. All the food was pretty tasty, (nachos, haggis balls, hummus and dippable things) and they served me tasty pints of drygate lager.
I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to come back, but if it’s quiet, I don’t think I’d argue against coming here.

The Wash has probably been past it’s prime for a number of years now but it’s location helps it to stay viable. I’m personally not convinced by the outside decking seeing as North Bank Street is a very busy road but it’s up to those who fancy a seat in the sun.
Prices are in keeping with the bulk of the city centre’s pubs so you’ll pay over £4 for a pint of decent Scottish beer & less for cooking lager. Music-​wise it probbaly plays less funk than it did when it was the Carwash but on busy nights you’ll be lucky to hear what’s issuing from the speakers anyway.
It’s handy to have something seeling beer at this point of the city but it’s not an essential place to visit.

Wandering around Edinburgh, saturday night, trying to find even one bar where you can sit? This was the place. Staff was friendly, you could talk without shouting your voice off, and there was a decent mount of beers to choose from. I was happy and we had a nice evening. Working wifi was also a plus, being foreigner. Thanks!

Ah, Wash Bar. Always the beacon of mediocrity. Look up «meh» in the dictionary and a photo of the Wash Bar awaits.
Weirdly, it’s been an Edinburgh staple for at least eight years, if not more. How is it still here?!!
I’ve been a couple of times. Always a below average experience. The décor reeks of student and the food has a lot to answer for. I opted for a plate of nachos last visit (how can you get nachos wrong?!) and although I polished off the entire plate because I was absolutely STARVING it was a painful experience.
Apparently there’s a good area you can book out for groups and events etc, so I think folk find this a useful addition to the bar. But going here for a drink and catch up? Ooft. There are so many better places nearby you can frequent instead. Don’t do it to yourself!

Stag parties stealing your tables?
A barmaid who required me to repeat my order three times, every time?
A bathroom with a weird column in the middle of it?
BAM Wash Bar has them all. I’ve been in a few times but was here recently as part of a leaving do. I remembered very quickly why I avoid the place. It was pretty lively on a Saturday night but most of the patrons seemed to be part of the humongous stag party who thought it would be ok to steal one of our reserved tables (the advantage of having two or more male friends over 6’5″ and one guy with a mountain beard becomes apparent when they merely need to stand up to send them scarpering!) or the 30^th going on upstairs. When the stag moved on the place was practically dead.
The bar seems well stocked but the barmaid had a hard time understanding me. Ordering crisps became a chore as I had an order with several requested flavours and was enquiring about availability.
The toilets are upstairs so getting to them means heading past whatever party has the upstairs booked and looking like some party crasher as they watch you suspiciously pass by their plates of pub sandwiches which did not look particularly nice. The toilets themselves are a bit of a shame and have a bizarre column in the middle, which means you play hide and seek around it with anyone else in the bathroom as there’s no room for two people to maneuver!
Overall, I’ll stick to avoiding it.

Just a bar, nothing that great I’m afraid.

Had a disappointing time there last night which topped off a few other slightly off visits over the past few months. Décor and layout are fairly pleasant — drinks are drinks and it was warmish and fairly lively. However at 9pm on a Saturday night when most people were chilling out and relaxing — enjoying perhaps the quiet atmosphere… the DJ started. and got louder and louder.
It was so loud it was difficult to talk. The massive TV was showing unrelated music videos. It was fairly bizarre. And I really was not enjoying it.
Anyway we left, I doubt I’d be back. Nothing particularly wrong but also not particularly enjoyable.

Contrary to the other reviewers found this to just he right place to pop into when the weather changed in Princes Park. Refreshed by a Dalwhinney 16 yr single malt + Stewart Embra micro brew and enjoying the wifi.
A nice mix of traditional and modern.

Situated on The Mound, The Wash Bar tries to give the impression thatt it’s the place to be. In fact, it’s not only too far out the way, but also too expensive to be anything along those lines. I’ve barely heard it mentioned in two years at uni and only been there a couple of times.
To be fair, it’s quite nice inside and they have plenty going on in the way of blackboards telling you what’s happening. Further, the décor is pretty nice with shiny wooden flooring and plenty of comfortable sofas to chill out on. The drinks aren’t exactly cheap, but they have a good range and you could definitely find worse places to kick the night off.
They seem to try to attract all the boisterous sports clubs. However, they’re not doing a great job as I’m in the rugby club and I’ve not heard it mentioned once.
The Wash Bar could be the place to go, were it not so conscious of its own image.

The Wash Bar can be found on The Mound, next door to Edinburgh University’s magnificent New College. It’s not renowned (in my opinion) as a bar that’s essential for a great night out, but I have have liked it on the odd occasion that I have been in. It’s not the most memorable place, and I agree with Jonathan in that respect. The location was what persuaded me to visit — meeting up with some people after shopping on Princes Street.
Not much more to add to what’s already been said really. It’s a bar that’s clearly trying hard to attract, but perhaps not quite succeeding as yet. Their website is interesting. It reminds me a bit of my dad — trying to be cool and say the right things, but falling short. It’s not the most original in what it says — you could pretty much cut and paste it to a description of any bar across the city.
As Cheryl said, this bar has become a place that people simply use to stop briefly in, rather than to spend a great deal of time in.

Its not a great thing when going to somewhere for what you think is for the first time, and getting there and realising you have been there before. Yep, The Wash Bar failed so misserably to make an impression last time I was here, I had totally forgotten about it.
That pretty much describes the night I had, uneventful and a bit boring to be honest. The bar isnt great, and I felt somewhat on the expensive side. There arent enough seats, despite the size of the bar, and from what I could tell it was a place where much younger people come to drink.
Still not a fan, but at least I wrote it down this time, so I wont forget.

This place describes itself on it’s website as «the place to be and be seen». Um, no, it’s definitely not.
«Bang average» is probably how I’d describe this place. I’ve only been once, and it was for a friend of a friend’s birthday night out and they were all meeting in there, rather than going out of choice.
The first thing that annoyed me was that they’re one of the many bars that serve drinks in tiny little glasses, like those ones that old people keep their teeth in at night. When I asked for a bigger glass the barmaid said I’d have to buy a double vodka, the single only came in the hobbit-​sized ones.
My — or should I say our, as everyone in the group was quite keen to move on to the next bar after about 10 minutes — was that there was nowhere to sit. It wasn’t particularly busy, it’s just that there are enough seats for about 15 people in the whole place.
The only reason I gave it 2 stars and not 1 is because on my way out I noticed a blackboard describing their full scottish fry-​up. Maybe it’s a question of how mediocre everything else about this place was, but that fry-​up made me think that the Wash Bar does have some good things about it.

I get the feeling that because of the in between location of this bar, lots of people just see it as a passing through joint for the purpose of filling up with one for the road, and then getting going, which is a shame, considering the prowess of position it has at the top of The Mound (the hill connecting Edinburgh’s Old and New Town, for those who don’t know it).
The bar looks deceptively small from the outside, but actually has a fair bit of room once you’re in, with a good chunk of white, padded comfy seating on two levels, plus some funky bar stool action on the go. The atmosphere here is definitely relaxed and easy going, and I’d certainly feel comfortable chatting away with drinks for a few hours, although it’s still definitely in the don’t slouch too much bar category, and doesn’t cross over to the cosy, make yourself completely at home feeling that some other bars and pubs have.

I remember Wash Bar on the mound being a lot cooler than it is now. It’s now an Edinburgh Uni Pony Pony Landrover joint by the looks of things. Big plastic signs on the front to advertise how tolerant they are of rugby fans, when most cooler bars aren’t for a reason. It also seems to be the starting point for the dreadful Pub Golf crawl favoured by 16 and 17 year olds. I don’t know if I’m looking back with rose tinted glassed but it’s definitely not what it could be, considering its location.