Finally, bar review makes its way to Jesus. In the packed set of Turl Street/ Broad Street, Jesus has always seemed a bit of a let-down. A bit of a waste of quality Oxford Portland stone buildings. To be honest, we were bang on correct. Making our way to intimate old Jesus, our hopes were not high. On leaving again, we seem to have lost any semblance of hope at all. Thank God Jesus was preparing for a traj Halloween bop; the disappointed glare in our eyes probably provided a scary enough costume for us. Lana del Rey’s drab songs echoed through the halls as we descended into the mostly-closed underground realm of Jesus bar.
A few unframed posters does not make a bar, and no number of crinkled old Guinness adverts can elevate the drab white walls to anything above an undergraduate student’s digs. The sadly generic oars on the beams maintain some shred of college pride. Unfortunately, the bar sacrifi ces tradition and taste to an easy-to-clean stone formula perfect for bops. The underground location of the bar has great potential, but due to some mastermind painting the entire space has a cold, clinical shade of white: the old-school charm of the bar is completely lost. Add shitty lighting and sticky black leather sofas to the mix, and you feel like you’re in a well-lit sex dungeon.
As you walk towards the far end of the bar, the atmosphere becomes less brothel, more garden-shed-meets-JCR, and the music fades away. Here, the winning feature is the range of toys that they had on off er. A punch-bag, football table, wide-screen TV and a huge pile of leather bean bags make you feel like you’re in Google HQ. As for the crowd, bar review can only be grateful it doesn’t attend this historic institution, given the state of their bop prinks. The rugby third-place playoff had a good following of boys with beers in one corner, but the other tables were unfortunately occupied by shockingly off ensive fresher PDA practitioners.
The music got louder, mercifully drowning out the shit banter of people dressed in tragic Halloween outfi ts. On a caprice, we ordered four more of the reasonably priced and quite nice Sheepbites, and by this point in the evening even the dweeby freshers with lanyards hanging around their necks were in the mood for PT. In a shocking twist, the vibe suddenly became as energetic as any bar mitzvah we’ve been to. Unfortunately, we felt no compulsion to stay and watch as water turned to wine and the freshers soaked their romantic sorrows in a prime, sad, location.
