Thatch & Thistle

A great place for families to go and let the kids loose whilst having a bargain meal. It’s noisy, cheap and everything comes with chips and boiled peas.
The food isn’t great but is at least edible. There’s a selection of meals that are 2 mains for £8.45 so you can’t expect much. As a filler it’ll do. The platters were good with variety, but it’s lots of frozen things deep fried.
My advice would be to head to Sycamore Farm in Burnley that does the same thing better.

I dont think that there is another pub doing food in Nelson now. This place has a great selection of burgers, and Sunday lunch is okay too. You can only get there by car or taxi cos its a long walk.

The food is pretty good value overall and the menu quite extensive, although this combination compromises quality but don’t be put off by that! Beers a bit expensive but hey, it ain’t W’spoons!

Nice themed pub layout, very reasonable prices and a generally nice selection of ales.
Food can be very hit or miss, from nice to poorly made (depending who’s cooking).
They have installed neat booths for up to 6 with a TV at the end, ideal for a young family where the kids need a TV to keep quiet, this is mixed with modern style tables overall a nice layout.
It’s a nice place to meet up with friends IMO

Avoid. At all costs.
Okay– maybe a little harsh. The exterior is inviting, with its authentic thatched roof and all. But we should have known by the price of food advertisements outside («2 meals for the price of 1!”– which my husband says is the telltale sign that the food will be bad) that we should have skipped right over this place for a more quaint, out of the way pub on our way for a day out in Skipton. But hunger won out and we went in just the same.
Upon first glance, it wasn’t so bad. Your typical road side chain pub. It looked clean, there were a fair number of people in for lunch and there were no disturbing smells or sounds emanating from anywhere. But the next clue of what was to come– the inordinate amount of gambling and video games throughout, should have sent us running the other way.
The menu was massive– another clue that the food was to be mediocre at best. As Gordon Ramsey always says, be good at a few things, you can’t be good at it all (well, he doesn’t say it like that exactly, and surely there would be a lot more expletives thrown in there but you catch my drift). There was so much, I didn’t know what to choose… but it wouldn’t have mattered. It was all pretty dismal.
But what really did it in was the service. I’ve certainly come to have low expectations of service in general in England– and no, I shouldn’t expect much from a roadside pub, but this was spectacularly bad. Particularly given that it was the kind of place where you order at the bar and they just (almost literally) throw your food at you. I doubt that many people could have been having that bad of a day– unless they were all told the pub was going out of business and they were all being made redundant. Well, maybe that’s not too far-​fetched. But they all did look like their dog had gotten hit by a mail truck. The atmosphere was that desperate.
Long story short? Keep driving– there’s more to be found further down the motorway…

Pub/​restaurant very conveniently placed just off the M65, Barrowford exit. Thatched roof (hence the name) but I have noticed the thatch is in need of some attention lately. Plenty of parking. Has changed hands a couple of times over the last few years, and the current owners seem to be doing a fairly good job with the food, ambience and general cleanliness. The prices of both food and drink are reasonable, my only dislike is the bizarre ‘smokers’ area’ outside the front of the building, behind a trellis — you feel a little uncomfortable and under scrutiny when entering the building.