The Old Crown Public House
Camden inspected this address on 23 June 2026 and gave the pub 1 out of 5, with food handling and confidence in management both marked down.
Why go
For the licence and the room, and nothing on a plate. The building is Grade II listed, first listed on 20 June 2023, and sits on the corner of Museum Street facing St George's Bloomsbury (Historic England). Three floors, two of them open to the public at all times, a first-floor lounge with its own bar that holds 30, a top floor that takes 70 standing, and a karaoke room. It runs to 3am Thursday through Saturday, which in this stretch of Holborn is the actual proposition.
The beer is a McMullen tie. The Hertford brewer bought the pub from Punch Taverns in July 2013, and CAMRA's North London branch has marked it a non-real-ale house since a survey found no handpumps at all: This pub had NO CASK handpumps when we visited tonight ... Best to mark it now as a non-real ale pub
(CAMRA). Three handpumps stood here in 2002. The kitchen is not the pub's own; it is separately sublet and separately registered, and the venue's own food page has been carrying festive flavours
copy into August while the kitchen under-goes a few updates
(venue).
Order this / avoid
- Order: a McMullen beer, which is what the tie gets you, and book the karaoke room if that is why you came.
- Avoid: the food. The rating is 1 and it is six weeks old.
What locals & experts say
- CAMRA, North London branch, on the beer, from the branch survey:
This pub had NO CASK handpumps when we visited tonight ... Best to mark it now as a non-real ale pub.
2 The record's live status line still readsCask Ale not available.
- McMullen & Sons, the owner, describes its own pub as
A contemporary London pub and cocktail bar that has been a part of the Mac's pub family since 2013.
4 The same page claims the burgers are award winning and that the pub wasVoted one of London's best burger bars
, with no award body, no poll and no year attached, so neither claim is carried here. - No critic and no chef has written about this pub in anything reachable on 1 August 2026, and it appears in none of the 622 rows of London industry recommendations held in this repo.
Good to know
- Hygiene, and this is the reason to read before you go: FSA rating 1, Camden, inspected 23 June 2026, FHRSID 1025458. Component scores are hygienic food handling 10, structural condition 15 and confidence in management 20, where higher is worse. The separately sublet kitchen at the same address, registered to COQPIT LIMITED, was inspected the same day and rated 2. No re-rating was pending on 1 August 2026. The venue stays listed and this finding is stated alongside it every time.1
- Where: 33 New Oxford Street WC1A 1BH, on the Museum Street corner. A different pub called The Crown sits at 51 New Oxford Street, and our own geocode sidecar currently points this pub at a third one in Battersea.
- Timing: noon to 11pm Monday to Wednesday, noon to 3am Thursday to Saturday, noon to 1am Sunday.
- Booking: walk in for the bar. The lounge and top floor are hired.
- Operator: licensee under a regional brewery tie. McMullen of Hertford holds the freehold, Grand Imperial Ltd the lease, and the food is a separate business again. Three parties, and nobody whose name is on a menu.
Verdict
listed — On the board, and read the record before you order anything. Camden inspected this address on 23 June 2026 and rated the pub 1 out of 5, with food handling at 10 and confidence in management at 20, where higher is worse. The kitchen is separately sublet and its operator was rated 2 the same day. Set that aside and weigh the craft on its own: CAMRA's North London branch marked the pub a non-real-ale house after a 2023 survey found no handpumps at all, and its live record still says 'Cask Ale not available'. McMullen of Hertford has held the tie since 2013, so the range is one regional brewer's own. The pub's own website has been carrying festive copy into August explaining that the kitchen is mid-update. What is genuinely here is a Grade II building on the corner of Museum Street, three floors with a karaoke lounge, function rooms for 30 and 70, and a licence that runs to 3am Thursday through Saturday. That is a late room near Tottenham Court Road, and it is worth exactly that.