Drapers Bar and Kitchen

Ah… The infamous Drapers…
A place known for drunk rugby players, slutty behaviour and fuck-​the-​freshers competitions.
But no, seriously, its fine!
The staff are all students, and super helpful, and although the food service is sadly lacking (we were missing cutlery AND half of the burger), it’s a good place to go out, especially if you’re a fresher.
Drinks are cheap. Especially on Poundstretcher Wednesdays, and the musics always student classics on Mondays.
There’s no better place to meet new (drunken) friends who you’ll be stuck with for a lifetime.

As a QM student I really appreciate this place for its friendly and non invasive atmosphere. My friends and I often spend our breaks between lectures and seminars in there.
The place has so much more than you would expect from a student bar. Large area, always enough tables, comfy sofas… the previous reviews mentioned sticky floors — but I never had any of that. Place is fresh and clean.
The prices are quite reasonable, as you would expect from a student place. However, the choice of drinks is not that impressive.
The food is reasonably priced as well. A nice lunch option — Ceasar salad for £3.50. However I get a feeling that chicken is microwaved for it… slightly strange taste. But a good portion.
I also tried their New Yorker meal. The burger was massive, with layers of meat, onion rings, lettuce and something else. It could definitely taste better (was very dry., but it was edible).
I loved a nice atmosphere of this plave, as it is not too loud to have a nice chat with friends or even for studying.
Will also have to test pool tables one day!

This is a canny place to be if you’re in Stepney, a bit skint, and fancy a drink with some students. Nothing wrong with the place, it’s just a standard, studenty type bar really no loo roll, sticky floors, and too many shots but CHEAP.

(This bar is located on the campus of Queen Mary U — students only.)
Keep in mind that my perspective is skewed because I’m an American and we don’t have bars on our college campuses, but regardless, I thought that Drapers was a ridiculously convenient and casual way to meet mass quantities of college-​aged people. In the US, bars don’t have age filters, so in order to meet other people in their twenties, you will likely have to sift through groups of creepy 40 year olds who are also there and hoping to buy you a drink.
Granted, Drapers is nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. I embraced it for what it was — from the floors sticky with spilled beer to the corny but cute stoplight parties — and had a good time.

Having undergone somewhat of a transformation over the last year, Drapers Bar, home of the riff-​raff of Queen Mary University, reopened its doors in September to the grateful sighs of skint students.
A lot has changed. Gone are the shabby, wobbly chairs and scratched tables along with the incredibly sticky bar area. Gone is the slightly peculiar no-​smoking/​pool area and gone most noticeably is the upstairs club of E1. Students starting this year will never know the mixture of revulsion and ecstatic joy that one always felt upon entering that dark and dank hole of a club. Now that it’s gone I don’t mourn its passing but I do remember it fondly from time to time.
In its stead the new drapers bar is, well, very new I suppose. New bar, new rooms, new dancefloor, new staff, new food, new drinks. The only thing which has yet to change is the dreadful music but, whereas in the old shabby Drapers, it felt kinda ok to groove to Bön Jovi, now I feel like heaving. Everything is so clinical, so clean and crisp that I’m almost afraid to touch things — not the sensation one wants in a student bar. The drinks as ever remain wonderfully cheap and the food has actually gotten really bloody good.
This does not change the fact, however, that Drapers has turned into any other venue you might find in London, and with that thought in mind, I’d rather go elsewhere.