The Royal Standard on Mill Road finally reopened on October 22nd, almost a decade since it last operated as a pub. Landlord Jethro, who also runs the Cambridge Blue and the Blue Moon with his wife Terri, has revived the pub and brought good beer to an area where it was in short supply.
A fine Victorian two bar pub built in 1881, when Mill Road was suddenly expanding over the railway bridge and across the open fields to the east, it stands on the corner of Malta Road, a side street which like many off that end of Mill Road had not yet been completed when the pub was built.
It has now been opened out into a one bar pub, with a grand, brown tiled bar as the centrepiece, with 6 real ales and 10 keg lines serving the likes of Nene Valley Bible Black, Adnams Blackshore Stout and Hardknott Lux Borealis, all of which we enjoyed when we visited. There is also a fridge full of Belgian beer, food is available, including Sunday roasts, and there is plenty of seating.
Menu from the Royal Standard’s time as an Indian Restaurant
It’s good to see another Cambridge pub reopen, especially one that was neglected and looked lost for good when it was converted to an Indian Restaurant in 2007, and when that closed in 2011, served as a charity shop while awaiting its likely fate of redevelopment for housing.
There was opposition to the loss of another pub in Romsey*, an area of Cambridge covering the far end of Mill Road and the back streets between Mill Road and Coldham’s Lane, following the closure of the Grasshopper in 1999, the Duke of Argyle and the Jubilee in 2009, all demolished and replaced by housing, and the Romsey Labour Club in 2014. *The Greyhound on Coldham’s Lane, which closed in 2008, was also in the Romsey Ward, but not in close proximity to the other pubs. This left only two pubs – the Brook and the Earl of Beaconsfield – bookending the stretch of Mill Road east of the bridge, and the Empress as the only remaining backstreet pub. Eventually plans which retained the Royal Standard alongside the residential development were approved, an agreement similar to that which enabled the recent reopening of the Queen Edith, although in this case the original building has thankfully been retained.
The Royal Standard is open every day from 11-11 at 292 Mill Road, Cambridge CB1 3NL
Pints and Pubs 
Nice pub with great real ales, but with the pub’s own DJ playing early club music from 2005 loudly late afternoon I will give it a miss from now on. Shame the wrong people run it, it needs a proper publican..sorry!