A Bristol pub famed for having a waiting list of its Sunday roasts, saw its entire calendar of bookings for 2025 sell out in mere minutes. The Bank Tavern on John Street opened its diary for 2025 bookings at 10am yesterday and just 13 minutes later, every slot was filled.
On Instagram, the pub’s team said: “2025 Sunday lunch is fully booked. You crashed our website and everything went in 13 minutes.
“Thank you for your continued support of our pub – this is a bit mental. If someone cancels a booking, it automatically reappears as a slot on our website – so keep checking periodically. We look forward to welcoming you all this year!”
Just minutes after the booking diary opened, the pub’s Instagram stories displayed a message to say the website was ‘lagging and struggling to keep up due to high volumes of people trying to book Sunday lunch’. The team said: “Please bear with us. We are aware of this and are working to fix the problem. Please keep refreshing and trying.”
Locals and fans of the pub’s famous roasts were quick to take to the comments to share either their excitement at bagging a booking, or disappointment at missing out. One said: “That’s insane… hopefully I will secure a 2026 roast.”
A second wrote: “Second year in a row I have attempted to book a roast dinner and got no where, I had so many issues with the booking system. So frustrating being from Bristol but can’t get a booking.”
While a third said: “Oh no! I slept through my alarm!” And a fourth declared: “Pile up the roast potatoes… because I am ready!”
This news comes just a few weeks after top US rugby star Ilona Maher, who is preparing for her first match with Bristol Bears Womens this month, visited The Bank Tavern where she got to enjoy one of the venue’s highly in-demand roast dinners. Ilona, who is an American rugby union player and one of the stars of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, has just signed a three-month contract with the Bears, which begins in January.
The 28-year-old, who has 4.6 million followers on Instagram, and 3.3 million followers on TikTok, shared a video to her socials in which she tucked into one of The Bank Tavern’s delicious roast dinners. In the video, the star said she came to England for two reasons – number one being rugby, and number two being to get a roast.
“This is what I came here for. I’m so excited.” She said, as she could be seen sat inside a very festively decorated Bank Tavern pub with a huge plate of food in front of her, before going on to say: “You can probably get me another one.”