Pub Awards: Best Student Winner - The Doctor's Orders, Sheffield

Previously the West End Hotel, the Doctor’s Orders is a totally refurbished pub located near to the university district in Sheffield with its name taken from its proximity to the city centre’s Hallamshire hospital.

Indeed, the pub claims to be the closest to the student union and the teaching hospital, and takes advantage of this fact with a front beer garden and proposals to turn upstairs rooms into guest accommodation for medics and students of the hospital.

The medically-themed venue doesn’t make it attractive to just undergraduate and junior doctors – though there is a 10% student discount for NHS medics and students – as a range of locally-sourced food, local ales, and fresh beer from its ‘Little Critters’ microbrewery all provide a rounded offer for the local student population.

Sponsorship

Sports teams also use the venue – some sponsored by the pub – and the university’s drama society holds its performances in the adjacent building. Targeted student sponsorships and a weekly specials list offer premium options. A speed quiz has also been introduced through a mobile phone app system.

The Doctor’s Orders, run by licensee Matthew Steer, aims high and wide, and plans to be the solid representation of the modern student pub.