There is one beer at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Not one good beer among several, one beer.
CAMRA’s record of the pub reads that it serves no changing beers and one regular beer: Samuel Smith Old Brewery Bitter, a session bitter at 4%.
No guest ales, no rotating taps, nothing seasonal. If you walk in wanting a choice of cask, this is not the pub. If you want a pub that has refused to change in a way almost nothing in London has managed, it is exactly the pub.
It was rebuilt after the Great Fire
The building is late seventeenth century, rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of London, and Grade II listed.
The listing describes a yellow brick front to Fleet Street, probably late eighteenth century, remodelled and heightened in the nineteenth, four storeys plus dormers in a slated roof. The side elevation on Wine Office Court runs four storeys with old continuous glazing at ground level.
Underneath, and this is the part worth knowing, there is a late seventeenth century vaulted cellar beneath a small courtyard.
Go in by the alley
The famous entrance is the side one, down a narrow alley off Fleet Street, in Wine Office Court.
That is the way in people mean when they talk about finding this pub. The Fleet Street frontage reads as a shopfront at ground level and the alley is what makes the arrival.
145 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2BU, on 020 7353 6170. Chancery Lane, Blackfriars, St Paul’s and City Thameslink are all short walks.
Drinking on three levels
CAMRA records it as having a nationally important historic interior, with an atmospheric front bar that keeps a roaring fire in winter, and many other drinking areas on three levels, some old and some more recent.
The named spaces recorded inside include the Chop Room with its snug, the Johnson Room, the cellar, a waiters’ hatch with a working tap, and a staircase to the second floor. There is wording preserved over the public bar door, and a passage with hatches.
One of the rooms is recorded under the name Gents Only Room, which is a survival of how the building was once organised rather than a current rule, and is the kind of thing that makes this interior worth the listing.
The practical consequence of three levels and a warren of rooms: if the front bar looks full, it is not full. Keep going up and through. Most visitors see one room and leave.
The hours are the same six days a week
Monday to Saturday: noon to 11pm. Sunday: noon to 10.30pm.
No early opening on any day, and no late licence on a Friday or Saturday. Nothing happens here before midday, which rules it out as a lunch-stop before noon and as a late one after eleven.
For a pub in the middle of the City that is unusual: most of its neighbours open for breakfast trade or shut at weekends entirely. This one keeps identical hours whether it is a Tuesday or a Saturday.
What it is good for
A fire, a four per cent bitter, a vaulted cellar, and no music competing with the conversation. It is a tourist destination and says so of itself, so expect company in the front bar.
The honest summary: come for the building and the atmosphere, not for the beer list, because there isn’t one.
How to plan it
Enter from Wine Office Court, the alley off Fleet Street, not the Fleet Street frontage.
Do not arrive before noon. It opens at midday every day of the week.
Expect one beer, Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Bitter at 4%.
If the front bar is heaving, go up and keep going. There are rooms on three levels.
In winter, the front bar has the fire.
Last orders are earlier than you think: 11pm, and 10.30pm on a Sunday.
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
- Address
- 145 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2BU, with the famous side entrance in Wine Office Court
- Nearest
- Chancery Lane, Blackfriars, St Paul’s and City Thameslink all a short walk
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday noon to 11pm. Sunday noon to 10.30pm
- Booking
- None. Walk in
- Price
- Samuel Smith house prices, with one draught beer
- Standing
- Rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of London, Grade II listed, with a nationally important historic interior and a late seventeenth century vaulted cellar
How to get in
It serves no changing beers and one regular beer, Samuel Smith Old Brewery Bitter at 4 per cent, so there is no beer list at all. Drinking areas run over three levels and the front bar keeps a fire in winter, so a full front bar does not mean a full pub. It opens at noon every day and never earlier.
Where to go next
The pubs page covers the rest, and the oldest pubs cover the other survivors.
St Paul’s is a short walk east, and Leadenhall Market is the other Victorian interior worth seeing in the City.
Questions we get asked
What beer does Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese serve?
One. CAMRA records the pub as serving no changing beers and a single regular beer, Samuel Smith Old Brewery Bitter, a session bitter at 4%. There are no guest ales or rotating taps.
What are Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese's opening times?
Noon to 11pm Monday to Saturday, and noon to 10.30pm on Sunday. It never opens before midday, and there is no later licence at weekends.
Where is the entrance to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese?
The famous entrance is the side one, down a narrow alley off Fleet Street in Wine Office Court. The address is 145 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2BU, where the ground floor reads as a shopfront.
How old is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese?
The building is late seventeenth century, rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of London, and is Grade II listed. The listing notes a late seventeenth century vaulted cellar beneath a small courtyard, with the Fleet Street frontage remodelled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese always busy?
The front bar usually is, but the pub has drinking areas on three levels including the Chop Room, the Johnson Room and the cellar. If the first room looks full, keep going up and through, because most visitors never get past the front.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 284 in the guide.
Last checked 5 October 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
