All Bar One

I have not eaten here, although they offer food, only been here for drinks. It’s a perfectly good place for a pint or two. If you sit in the front then the sound is not too loud and you can talk and watch people on High Street. I am giving it 3 stars only because as a modern bar, it lacks the history and feel of so many pubs in Oxford. The historical vibe makes the ales taste better and I prefer that. But this is a perfectly nice place, just not my style.

We walked in on a saturday evening, around 7, lots of long empty tables, not many people at the bar. The hostess told us she had nothing available. Maybe in thirty minutes.
But what about all those empty tables?
Reserved.
Can you put us on a waiting list?
We don’t have a waiting list.
How can we get a table then?
People wait at the bar. We’re a bar with food.
But you take reservations.
Thanks for being so helpful.
Maybe next time. Only there won’t be a next time.
I have a felling that if we’d stayed for the food, this review would habe been worse.

The atmosphere is pretty nice in here but the service and menu choices definitely set you up to leave disappointed.
My coworkers and I came here for lunch and I ordered the Pad ThaI— sans egg. When it came out, I received a doused in sweet and soy sauce vermicielli dish with some sort of light vegetable medley and pieces of fried egg. For a vegan, not particularly appetizing. I ate anyways and I can solidly say that it was the strangest take on pad thai I’ve ever had.
The way the bar section is set up in the front make this place appear accommodating for large crowds on a weekend night (or maybe a weekday happy hour) but whether or not that happens is yet to be seen.

Oooh I’m the first to review… wow!
Well it looked promising to start off with. Cool, upbeat interior, neat music, interesting menu, and a fairly decent selection of wines by the glass.
Upon entering, I eyed a girl behind the bar and asked, «Should I seat myself?:“Affirmative. I grabbed a table within four steps of the bar and started to look at the menu.
After about 5 minutes, no one had come by. I asked the man next to me, «Is there table service here for food?» He wasn’t sure. So I got up and asked a different girl if there was table service at the table at which I was seated. Apparently she was my server and said she’d be right by.
Another 5 to 8 minutes passed by. I asked her how large the full order of the baby back ribs was, worried that I might be ordering too much food. «Not large», she replied. So I said, I’ll that (I was HUNGRY!). I asked if they had wines by the glass as I had no drink menu. She handed me a drink menu from the adjacent table and asked if I’d like a few moments to look at the drink menu. Yes, I said.
I waited for what seemed like another 5 to 8 minutes. She finally returned. I ordered a glass of Barbera. She disappeared this time for what seemed like another 10 minutes. I tired of waiting for my wine so I headed to the bar and ordered the barbera directly from the barkeep.
After another 5 minutes my ribs show up, but she’s brought me the ½ order. I said «Is there more coming?» and she said no, that I’d ordered the ½ order.
Oy!
Finally I convinced her that I would actually like the full order.
«It will take some time», she said,
Me: «That is fine».
A few minutes later, she passed by and «reminded me» that I had ordered the half order. WTF?
Well it didn’t take that long, thankfully. They were delicious, btw. Quite impressed that I’d found ribs THIS GOOD in the UK.
But after I was finished it took at least another 15 minutes to get my check from her. She brought the credit card machine to my table.
I entered the tip as £2.20 (a 20% tip) but when she returned the completed receipt to me, she’d increased the tip to £2.80 (over 25%).
Did she really think her service was worth a 25% tip? I mean, come on… at 20% she should have been grateful considering how terrible the service was.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her. She seemed so complacent with herself.
Well, eventually she’ll read this review and the shock will set it. Yes, it’s worth the £0.60 to tell her this way.
It would have been 3.5 to 4 stars had the service not sucked so completely… alas…I will never come back for fear of a repeat performance and neither should you. Oxford is full of nice dining places with superior service.

Decent food and fairly reasonable prices, but it gets crowded, especially during Oxford term time

I took a group of friends here for my 22^nd birthday party and found it a very pleasant experience all round.
We ordered two of the £29.95 5-​to-​share Tapas Bundles between 8 of us (portions weren’t huge, but then neither is the price of these bundles), and while neither ground-​breaking nor the most authenticly Spanish Tapas I’ve tasted, was very nice.
Service was friendly, even if occasionally hard to attract the waiters’ attention (going to the bar easily solves this).
Finally, the bar provided a fun selection of drinks such as Pimms with Elderflower cordial.
I can’t comment about noise at the back, but sitting at the front noise levels were fine for conversation.
All in all, this comes well recommended. Normally I might give this 4 stars, but I feel the need to balance out the previous excessively harsh reviewers.

I find this bar is very over priced and a bit pretentious. I have only been in once and didn’t like it, everyone in there seemed quite rude including staff and customers. The cocktails are nice but way too expensive. It seems like the kind of bar you would go for a quiet drink, or somewhere you would go after work. The music is low and so you can hear everyone talking. It’s a typical wine bar I guess, but not really my cup of tea. The location is pretty good as it’s on the High Street, but you will find a better atmosphere in the pubs and bars on George Street and better prices.

I’ve heard so many bad stories about All Bar One: filthy toilets, rude staff and overpriced food. It’s actually been taken over quite recently and is well on the road to improvement. Yes, the toilets remain quite unpleasant, but then you don’t come here for the toilets. They do a fair old cooked breakfast (although not the best in Oxford) and you really can’t go wrong with a hot drink, especially when some of them come with a little shot of smarties! It’s not particularly comfortable, but it’s not as bad as I’d imagined, and I’ll certainly check it out again in a few months time to see how it’s doing.

ARGGGGGGGGHHHH this place is the pits — it needs to shut down and put everyone out of their misery! Its soooooo bad!!!
In brief:
Appalling atmosphere — music too loud for eating
Appalling service — Very rude staff
Mediocre Food — Not good enough to warrant price
Without meaning to cause offence as i too was not long ago an 18 year old undergrad, i think all the staff must be very young students. They giggle and gossip and ignore your existence.
They honestly do not care.
PLEASE, DO NOT GO HERE!