The Four Thieves is the only place in London where it’s OK to drink and drive.
If you’re done with darts and find pool a pain, The Four Thieves pub in Battersea is surely home to your new favourite pub sport. This much-loved boozer is home to a thrilling games room, and taking pride of place is its own multiplayer racetrack.
Reminiscent of the old Scalextric, the Moonshine Raceway allows up to ten punters to race against each other over 20 frantic laps, using ‘performance-matched top-range super-cars’ designed by The Racing Bug.
It really is a competitive experience like no other. (Well, OK, it’s a bit like racing real cars, we suppose.)
But we’re not done yet. Under the same roof, you’ll find a forest of classic arcade games, including Time Crisis, Point Blank, and ‘pinball for days’, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a state-of-the-art VR rig for a bleeding-edge gaming experience.
Alternatively, grab a putter and take on the glow-in-the-dark Plonk crazy golf course, if only to avenge your earlier, inevitable defeat at car racing. Finally, for an altogether more collaborative challenge, you and your cleverest friends can take on the in-pub escape room experience they call Lady Chastity’s Reserve – billed as “the Crystal Maze on crystal meth”.
On Saturdays, you can kick off your day of play with a bottomless brunch with Boogaloo Stu – it involves bingo – while Tuesday evenings are home to a fierce pub quiz with a £50 first prize.
There is other perfectly decent pub stuff, like beer, and food, comfy sofas downstairs, and a little terrace out the back to enjoy in the summer. But if you’re anything like me, you’ll just want another go on the racetrack. Play on, player!
Location: 51 Lavender Gardens, SW11 1DJ. Nearest stations: Clapham Junction (rail) or Clapham Common (tube). See it on Google Maps.
Opening hours: The pub is open seven days a week from noon; until 10.30pm on Sundays, midnight on Mon-Thu, and 2am Friday-Sat. HOWEVER: the arcade is not open weekday daytimes. The venue is 21+ on weekends.
Entry: Arcade activities can be booked and paid for separately. Car racing is from £3, the VR experience is £15, crazy golf is £6 (no advance booking), the escape room is £20 per person and can handle groups of up to six.
More information: on the Four Thieves website.
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Also published on Medium.