This is great place to meet up for a drink and fantastic food all at reasonable prices. Big screens for the sport and many beers to choose from. Will be back soon
Great pub! The British beer is good, the Kozel is great!
Great beer and great place, definitely come again untill I arrive to London.
Excellent great food lovely staff definitely will return
At 12pm staff looked tired but it is still a great place! Enjoyed our time here�
great food, great beer and great place, worth to visit
One of these he best burgers I’ve had in a long time
Brilliant London pub. Stopped in for a couple of quick halves. It was blinding.
Great food and great drinks, ordering using a tablet on the table is great
Everyone pleasant, doing a great job....food some of best F&C I have ever had.
Wanted to see the football on a Friday afternoon and found this pub a short walk from work. Across two levels with a large projector screen on the first floor. Several seating options though the much touted iPads to order were nowhere to be seen. Other than that, it was a fine experience with the pub food very very good. The portions are huge though!
Kristine Diana Tsiknaki
+4
The Thirsty Bear usually get points for novelty, for having a beer tap and iPad system in place in each table. You can get a card from the bar to operate that and have all your orders made through your table iPad and brought over to you by the staff and pour your own beer. Personally, since we visited at lunchtime when the place was fairly empty, I just made more sense to go order at the bar like in any other pub. The menu has lots of burger option, which I am currently a huge fan of. I ordered The Morning After burger, that has cheese and pulled pork along with the beef patty and it was moist and delicious! The only issue is that it was impossible to eat it as a burger because everything was slipping out of the bun and I had to use a knife and fork. The sweet potato fries that came with us were also amazing! My friend got the crispy chicken burger which was more dry so he managed to eat it normally. I would definitely go back to try more of their burgers and they also have a lunchtime deal for some of them where you can get a burger and a drink for £10. Bargain!
Gingle Lists Everything
+3.5
I'm a sucker for a bit of novelty, so when I heard about a pub where you can pull your own pints I knew I had to visit.
The opportunity arose when we needed somewhere to go for a drink before going to the Grimm Tales' second show (as wondrous as the first), as that was taking place around the corner in the Oxo Tower Wharf.
At 6pm on a Tuesday evening, Thirsty Bear wasn't exactly doing a roaring trade (where is at such a time) but I noticed quite a few tables were reserved for later. Perhaps a pub quiz? I couldn't stay long enough to find out.
Not only do they let you pour your own drinks, but they also do table service - hi-tech table service, with the purpose of taking out the annoying part of being at the bar - all the queuting and jostling for service. Here (provided you get the right table) you simply log in to the iPad on the table, scroll through all the drinks (cocktails, beer, wine), food (nachos, burgers, chips etc), snacks and even cigarettes and make your selection. Then you sit back and wait for it to arrive. Unless you want tap water, in which case, it seemed you could only get that at the bar. (But why would you want tap water?)
Or, if you don't like waiting at all, you can let them know you'll be doing your own serving, by making use of one of the taps on your table. That's right, beer (or cider) is directly pumped to where you are sitting,from which you can have as much or as little as you like. You're given a glass to top up as you please, and this is charged in tenths of a pint. Because I just had to try it out, just before we left I poured myself what turned out to be a third of a pint and was charged £1.20 for it. Pretty reasonably priced. The downside to this method though is that you only have a choice of Strongbow (bleugh) or Amstel.
The other beers and wines on offer through the iPad are pretty decent - my friend had a Malbec and I had a glass of Picpoul. A few of us got some food - nachos looked good and other chips/breaded items were decent.
The guy behind the bar was really helpful, explaining how the system works, and had endless patience when we left at the end and all wanted to pay our bar tabs separately. That's the only thing about the system - you get one login for the table, meaning all the drinks go on one person's tab, which could lead to some awkward bill splitting later.
Without the novelty this would be just a pretty average pub, but it's amazing how fun a bit of technology can make a normal experience.
![Zomato]( "Recensione")
The Thirsty Bear on Stamford Street, just by Waterloo Station, is owned and operated by the Robot Pub Group. It's an iPad-driven pub, and the concept is simple, yet massively effective....
iPad-driven beer. Check.
Put your card behind the bar and pick up an iPad swipe card. Choose your table based on the beer pumps available - this includes a range of lagers, but more importantly Meantime Pale Ale.
Build your own burger. Check.
Enter the menu on the iPad and choose either from a selection of pre-loaded burgers or go off piste and 'build your own'...
Browse the internet. Check.
Check out the latest news and reviews on www.hamburger-me(DOT)com from the comfort of your table by switching across the the iPad's built in browser.
Stumble out at closing time. Probably check...can't quite remember...
So let's talk burgers, which to be honest is what you're here for. I was invited to give their new burger recipe a once over against my five pillars of the Hamburger Me! rating system. So how did it fare?
Price:
'Build Your Own' Bacon Cheeseburger £12.15
BYOB 2012 Winner: Redneck Burger £11.95
Presentation:
The burgers are both presented on alpha male chopping boards, massive two foot long jobs that must be a good inch thick. They're skewered from head to toe with a wooden spike (to hold the masses of toppings together), and they come with a pile of either triple cooked chips, or French Fries. Impactful presentation!
Toppings:
The Redneck burger comes piled with masses of bbq pulled pork (double smoked, so it has some kick to it) on top of a melted pile of cheddar, and with a really good, smokey chipotle mayo spread under the lid of the bun. Sliced dill pickles are crunchy and sweet, but the bed of frilly lettuce is a bit much for us.
My 'Build Your Own' bacon cheeseburger was, probably fairly predictably, topped with a couple of thick rashers of great chargrilled back bacon and had melted American Cheese over the top. Underneath the same crunchy, sliced dill pickles and smokey chipotle mayo completed the ensemble.
Meat:
The meat in the Thirsty Bear burger is a blend of fillet, rib eye and bone marrow in a ratio of 50/40/10. I'd previously found the chef's blend of fillet/sirloin too 'tinny', lacking in the beefiness that defines some of London's great burgers, so the bone marrow is a welcome addition to mix. The patty also gets a jolly good charring on the chargrill, which I quite enjoyed, especially as the patty retained its medium rare centre. One minor point was that whilst the burger was moist, it is lacking the fat content to turn the bacon cheeseburger into my favourite kind of gushing juice monster - something the redneck burger didn't need with its mountain of pulled pork, and chipotle mayo.
Bun:
Surprise bun win! The burger comes wrapped in what is effectively a bastardized rosemary Foccacia bun. That's right, you heard me correctly, Foccacia. WTF? Yes, that's what I thought...but it works, and really well at that. It's made with a strong bread flour which makes it a hardy (yet still light and fluffy) bun, and the kick of rosemary is magic. It's baked in Bermondsey especially for The Thirsty Bear, and works jolly well with the burgers.
Accessories:
You get a choice of French Fries or triple cooked chips with your burger, so we had a portion of each. French Fries were great - hot, salty, crisp and fluffy. Triple cooked chips were were underdone and soggy. We had a chat with the chef afterwards and he's changed his triple cooking technique - so they are likely to be better when you get down there - if they are, let me know!
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
Mmm...that is a tasty burger. Maybe it was the six pints of meantime, or maybe the fact that England had just managed to scrape a penalty draw with Ukraine, but I found this is a really solid burger - that said, it wouldn't hurt to hit a higher fat content in the patty, and a bit of work on the triple cooked chips is definitely needed, oh, and reduce or get rid of the lettuce in the Redneck... A really solid burger and one I'm sure you'll enjoy. And of course where else in London is there a pub where you can you pour your own pints using a tap on your table, order your food from iPads AND use it to call your waitress to bring you bourbon from the bar?! Go. I am convinced you'll love it!
Very tasty burgers here, that you can design yourself using a table top tablet. It's actually a lot of fun picking ingredients for your own burger, and the result (16oz "big ass" patty, smoked bacon, monterey jack cheese, mixed salad leaves, tomato) was very satisfying and very filling.
This place is great fun to go to for a group of friends with a healthy appetite (for big ass burgers).
![Zomato]( "Recensione")
On the outside, this is a seemingly normal, bog standard London Bar. Well, my friends, you could not be more wrong. This is the brand new era of pubs. It is innovative, futuristic and tasty.
When you enter, you set up a tab at the bar (you can spilt the final bill between multiple cards) and you will be presented with a white credit card type thing. Go up the stairs and you be greeted with an eastern American, preppy style sport bar with a long curved bar, two huge projector screens and several TV screens. Oh you might also notice the IPads growing from the centre of the tables and the beer taps at the end of every table! Thats right,read that last sentence again. Each table has an iPad, where you can order food on a specially designed touch pad program, order drinks, get the attention of the staff, add music to the electronic jukebox and even browse twitter, Facebook and YouTube! All the staff have an iPhone strapped to their arm so everyone you make an order, it sends the order to the phone and they will bring the order to your table. No more queuing for Charlotte!! Oooo and yes they're bar taps on all the tables, just pick up the glasses on the table and start pouring. It works on a kind of petrol station idea, you only pay for what you pour. It is all very very clever.
The food is AMASING. In my opinion the best burgers in London. You first pick your bread, cheese, sauce, choice of fries, style of salad and toppings such as pulled pork, avocado, bacon, pretty much anything you can think of. Even choosing the main patty becomes a big problem, do you have duck? Beef? double beef? Chicken? Turkey? Venison? Veg? The list is endless. Man VS Food eat your heart out. These burger are so juicy, so tasty and ginormous. I had a massive 9 month food baby after 3 bites, so it's so good I couldn't stop. I was genuinely sad when it ended. If you do happen to go, gimme a shout and I'll join you!!!
Somewhat of a different take on this place since we came for a quick lunch rather than a pint after work.
Absolute value of a lunch set with its multiple burger options and sides AND a drink. Loved the pint of cider (certainly didn't help our productivity after but well).
Would come back. Beautiful burger as well.
Special lunch - Burger, fries and a pint for £10🙌 and it was honestly one of the tastiest burgers I’ve had. Would highly recommend.
I had been there before pandemic and tried my luck again - we weren’t disappointed at all!
They have a Special lunch - Burger, side and a pint for £11 and it was really tasty compared to other burgers I’ve had. Would likely recommended it.
Lovely pub near Southwark, great for a few drinks or watching the football. Came here for a man utd game, wasn't much seating and because of the angle of the TV, we had to stand. Lots of cool features like tablets on the table to order from and taps to pour your own beer. Food was good and reasonably priced.
Thirsty Bear Bar rocks! Dropped by for a games meetup and it was epic. Cool vibes, awesome drinks, and super-friendly peeps. The place had plenty of room for our crew, and the vibe was buzzing. Thirsty Bear Bar totally nailed it for a chill gaming hangout. Can't wait to roll some dice there again!
A super little place between Blackfriars and Waterloo bridges on the south side of the river. Unusual in that it has draught beer taps at some of the tables for all the wannabe bartenders. Also provides entertainment in the form of darts and foosball. Good cold beer served swiftly and happily. A good place for a beer and a laugh.
I went here with a few girls after work quite late in the evening. The bar staff were really great at looking after us and making sure our drinks were looked after when some guys started chatting to us. Really observant and going that extra mile to make sure we were safe. Thanks.
First time visiting, really welcoming bar staff and a very chilled atmosphere on a Saturday afternoon. Will be back. Decent pub food menu, and neck oil / gamma ray on tap.
Don’t go there expecting a fancy place that’s spotlessly clean, serving gastro pub food. Expect a boozer where you have your own table with Neck Oil on tap, iPads to order everything, burgers, sport on big screens/projectors with a lively crowd and friendly staff.
This pub is such a gem in Waterloo, it’s so underrated. Best place to watch the football we watched all the England games for the World Cup. Had a burger every time and they are DELICIOUS. Better than independent places, texture was perfect and tasted so nice. Often drop in on a Sunday but the vibes on a Saturday night are really fun, even after England lost we stayed for a while and really enjoyed it. Great bar
The Thirsty Bear is a great name, and the bar has some nice beers on tap. They seem to have once had taps on tables for self service, but that system no longer works... Or so it seems. It can be confusing as they have beers listed on the taps at the tables, that they just don't seem to serve at the bar...
Food was good pub food, tasty burgers, good chips, AMAZING onion rings... But there was no salt or pepper so we couldn't salt our own chips. Even when we asked at the kitchen they wouldn't give us a pinch.
As is the standard in London, the music is waaaay too loud so you have to shout at people sat next to you.
Great place to have a drink or two.
Option to have a tap on the table. 2 bars, one upstairs and one downstairs. Great lunch deal, one burger (veggie available) side and beer for ten quid. Fast service. Bathrooms available
Fabio Basile (Osteopath)
+5
Good drinks and food indeed! Highly recommended
An error has occurred! Please try again in a few minutes