The Oxford Retreat en Oxford

Great place to dance until 3am on a Friday night. The staff try to keep the tables and surfaces clean and free of glasses. General atmosphere was fun, with no unruly punters. The DJ played a lot of Latin music, RnB and reggaeton, but mixed it up with popular crowd pleasers also. Everyone had something they’d like. Only criticism is that, while I am sure the bar staff try their best and it is a busy bar on a Friday night, they have to at least try to look around the bar and make note of who has been waiting, instead of just serving whoever is directly in front of them. Some people are less visible than others and (wether due to conscious or unconscious bias) are less likely to be served - and the bar staff very clearly did not attempt to serve people at the bar fairly, instead just serving whoever was in the immediate line of sight after pulling a pint or handing over the payment machine. Essentially, unless you are a person of the most favourable visual characteristics, you will not get served in good time. Sadly, more than one bar staff member should be mindful of this. Still had a good night and so, out of respect and the benefit of the doubt, it’ll be 4 stars.

Excellent service!! We booked the private function room ‘The Study’ upstairs at the Oxford Retreat for our wedding reception for 40 plus guests. We were initially drawn to its old fashioned vintage vibe with all of the beautiful wooden interiors & ivy growing over the window panes and the weeping willow outside along the canal (a great photo opportunity) It is also a stones throw away from the Oxford registry office so another plus. We were hosted by Lambros and his wonderful team who really took care of us throughout the whole process. After lots of discussion, we ended up having a section of the downstairs part of pub for the meal and went on upstairs for the eve! This broke up the day and was lovely with the atmosphere of the locals chatting to us and paying an interest in our wedding celebrations! Everyone was so friendly, warm and welcoming. You can hire the whole pub if you wish, but we chose not to and it was just fabulous for our small alternative style wedding. The food was delicious (we had a 3 course sit down meal & canapés in the eve) and Lambros kindly adapted the menu’s to suit our tastes/needs and was super attentive to how I wanted to tables to be set with all of the napkins and flowers etc. The pub itself is very charming, so easy to work with decoration wise and provided a very natural, whimsical look which is what I wanted. The upstairs had a little terrace with ample seating which was perfect and used all night by our smoking guests and those that like the outdoors and less noise from music. We also had the use of the main garden downstairs which is very pretty and well lit which was nice and bustling amongst the regulars. We pre ordered drinks tokens for our event and ours included cocktails which just so happened to be 2 for 1 at that time which was a great little touch to what was a most magical day/night! We hired the study until 1am and I believe you can go even later if you wish! Hire includes the use of mics and some equipment for music & speeches. We can’t thank Lambros and his team enough for all of the hard work and efforts they put into making our day completely brilliant! Very attentive throughout and we felt that overall they were such a big part of what made our day go so smoothly. It was completely fabulous :) Would 100% recommend this place! Ruth & Duane