CityLife

Font

SOME bars are the leisure equivalent of comfort food: you know what you’ll get, they inevitably cheer you up, and you’re always happy to go back for more.

Font wont be everyone’s idea of the ideal bar: it’s not super stylish, or bleeding edge trendy, its cocktail list wont set your world on fire and, as one of the well-trodden cluster of outlets at the top of the busy Oxford Road corridor, it’s long since lost any status as ‘the place to be seen’.

But some things are more important than the whims of fashion, and flash drinks don’t always maketh the bar.

Shooters

Alongside a respectable selection of continental beers, wines, coffees and student-friendly cocktails and shooters (choose from a list of 25), Font has character in spades – which is what keeps the crowds coming.

The interior design sets the tone. This two-floored set up is daubed in street-style artwork and scattered with comfy sofas and big tables – which, combined with the free WiFi, make it a good spot for setting up your laptop and getting that essay polished off.

It serves pretty tasty, cheap food during the day too. Breakfasts served till 5pm (including a £3.50 fry up) are an indication of where this bar is pitching its custom – laid back people with laid back lives.

Ah, to be a student again.

Distinctly clubby

While the days are about coffee and chilling out, at night Font rocks the DJ bar vibe with regular music programming (guest DJs and promoters pimping everything from Eighties electro pop to dub, soul, funk, indie and electro) that makes it feel distinctly clubby later on in the evening.

Downstairs, the dancefloor can get pretty crowded. So crowded in fact that its owners have opened a subsidiary sister bar to take up the slack.

With the new site in Fallowfield (watch this space for a review), this perpetual student’s favourite has made a welcome foray into its spiritual home.

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