Many have tried to cease Ilona Maher from reaching her meant vacation spot. A large number of them find yourself sprawled on the turf, watching on helplessly because the US rugby famous person runs in one other strive.
And but, when the Olympian tried to get into an unassuming pub tucked away in the backstreets of a southwestern English metropolis, a sympathetic shake of the top was all it took to show her away.
But that’s only a typical Sunday at The Bank Tavern in Bristol, house to the most popular meal ticket, not simply in city, however maybe anyplace in the world.
Eleven minutes was all it took for the pub’s legendary Sunday lunch to get booked up for the whole thing of 2026 when reservations went stay on January 1, two minutes sooner than the earlier 12 months.
That’s thrice faster than tickets bought out for final summer season’s Glastonbury Festival, an occasion the place the problem of securing entry is nearly as famed because the numerous music greats who’ve graced its levels.
Even so, The Bank’s proprietor is protecting his ft planted firmly on the bar’s picket flooring.
“Each time, the waves of anxiety that come over me are whether we’ll sell out at all,” pub landlord Sam Gregory instructed NCS.
“There are so many fantastic places to eat in Bristol. We’re incredibly lucky people continue to make the effort to book in with us … We don’t take that for granted!”
As a beloved bedrock of British pub grub, the Sunday lunch, or roast dinner, is straightforward sufficient to seek out, however sourcing a really glorious roast is a difficult activity.
That a multi-award-winning instance hides amid the meandering medieval sideroads of Bristol’s Old City quarter is a shock, even perhaps for those who have been to stumble proper previous its sage inexperienced doorways.
Self-described as “a uniquely inhospitable environment,” The Bank boasts neither a carpark nor a eating space. Food is just served at lunchtime and is delivered to a mere seven accessible tables which, for many of the week, are occupied by a loyal clientele nursing their favourite ale.
“We’ve got all the characters; Mad Mick, Doctor John, Wobbly Bob,” Gregory stated.
“They all come in for a pint of Bass. It’s just a solid boozer but with the added, unexpected bonus of the food.”
For these fortunate sufficient to safe a Sunday reserving, it’s fairly the bonus certainly.
A butternut puree serves because the moat for a fort of painstakingly ready roast dinner icons. Three roast potatoes (at all times the Maris Piper selection), creamed spinach, herbed greens, braised pink cabbage, seasonal greens like carrots or parsnips, and a selection of beef, pork, hen or vegetarian pithivier (puff pastry) prop up a fluffy Yorkshire pudding.
Subtle menu modifications are topic to the seasons and the provision of native produce, with lamb, pheasant, partridge or venison all popping up as choices all year long.
Naturally, all of the above is doused in a beneficiant serving to of gravy, which — starting with the roasting of bones — takes three days to make. The entire course of, overseen by 4 full-time cooks, begins in earnest on Wednesday.
Such efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Crowned the UK’s Best Sunday lunch by The Observer in 2019, The Bank has collected a flurry of regional accolades for its roast dinners. The secret? A sprinkling of fine old school ardour.
“It’s having chefs that love what they do,” Gregory defined.
“They take a phenomenal amount of pride in each plate that goes out … that’s what resonates with customers. They taste it and they taste something that’s been lovingly prepared with a lot of attention gone into it.”
Roast dinners weren’t at all times a star attraction at The Bank.
The newest in a protracted listing of landlords relationship again to the pub’s early nineteenth century origins, Gregory took the reins amid the 2008 monetary disaster, a pointy divergence from his authentic plan to affix the Royal Marines, primarily based a stone’s throw away.
What began as a short lived caretaker position to “keep the lights on” has become an 18-year stint that has seen Gregory rework a “run-down” institution right into a coveted locale that has garnered international media curiosity.
Always excessive in recognition however as soon as quick on “finesse,” Sunday lunch shortly grew to become a focus of the owner’s plan to inject new life right into a pub that’s primarily wet-led: producing most of its revenue by drink, not meals.
With the assist of the then-new chef, who suggested paring again the Sunday lunch, Gregory’s childhood favourite took on new life.
“It was a meal you weren’t allowed to skip,” Gregory, one in every of six siblings, stated, recalling his youth.
“There was never any food in the house and yet my Mum would always be able to rustle up this fantastic Sunday lunch and we’d all be around the table. It was the envy of my friends and one of those (key) childhood memories.”
Interest in the pub went “bonkers” after The Observer award, recalled Gregory, who, heartened by the then-six-month ready listing, shelled out for an in depth refit of the kitchen.
Yet catastrophe struck weeks later when the UK went into Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020. The Bank endured the pandemic, in half due to a well-liked heat-at-home roast dinner supply package, however by the point it totally re-opened in 2022, the ready listing had stretched to an eye-watering 4 years.
Having closed the diary to clear the backlog, the pub spent the subsequent two years’ value of Sundays seating these in the queue. Gregory fondly recollects one younger diner who had not even been born when his dad and mom booked the desk, whereas one other expressed no remorse at lastly tucking in to a meal three years and a 230-mile spherical journey in the making.
Several well-known faces have secured a spot since, together with comic Jack Whitehall and, ultimately, Maher.
The American, who played for the Bristol Bears Women rugby team for the primary 5 months of 2025, was squeezed in every week after her preliminary inquiry, when a cancellation freed up a spot.
“Great fun. Absolutely huge personality,” Gregory stated of Maher, who documented her journey for her monumental TikTok following, presently at 3.9 million customers.
“We probably got maybe 1,000 – 2,000 extra followers, mainly from the US, and the comments were out of this world: ‘What’s that on the plate?’ People asking for recipes for Yorkshire puddings and stuff like that.”
The feeling was very a lot mutual.
Gravy spattered throughout her soon-to-be-empty plate, Maher cooed: “This is spectacular. Everything I wanted.”