Halfway House
The bar sits midway up the Fleshmarket Close steps, which is where the name comes from and why people stop.1
Why go
The List calls it a tiny bar and puts it halfway up one of the Old Town's harder climbs, between the Cowgate and Cockburn Street.1 CAMRA counts four cask beers here and records none of them as permanent, so what is on when you arrive is what the cellar bought that week. The branch says those lines run mainly to Scottish breweries and names Broughton, Orkney and Stewart as the ones that come round most.3 No critic has written about this bar.
Good to know
- Address: 24 Fleshmarket Close, on the steps between Market Street and Cockburn Street.2
- Booking: nothing published. Treat it as walk-in.
- Groups: the room is described as tiny by the only source that describes it. Two or three people, not eight.
- Hours and price: nobody has published either. Both are unknown here rather than guessed.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 27 May 2026, FHRSID 120516. Two months old.4
- Spelling: the hygiene register files this as "HALF WAY HOUSE" in three words. Search it both ways.
Verdict
listed — A tiny bar partway up one of the Old Town's steepest closes, with four cask lines that all rotate. The List places it midway up the Fleshmarket Close steps and calls the room tiny, CAMRA counts four changing beers and no permanent ones, and that is the entire published record on the place. It earns a spot on a list for what it is, a genuine old-town drinking room on a stair most visitors climb without looking sideways, and it does not earn a detour, because nobody has written a paragraph about the beer, the food or the people. Go if the close is on your route and you want a pint of something you have not had before. The register inspected it in May 2026 and passed it.