Oh wow, this really is what this long-neglected venue has been waiting for. On a Sunday afternoon walk we reached the boathouse after its usual closing time (5pm) to find a sign redirecting us to the tavern - hooray! The relief. Sadly they'd run out of all but one of their excellent cakes, so we settled for a capuccino, a Fentimans ginger beer and two fat slices of just-baked wholemeal bread with butter and damson jam. With the evening sun streaming through the window onto us and our table and some chilled-out dance music playing in the background, this was a perfect end to our weekend - and with the cakes all gone and the venue still buzzing with people (and they've only been open 2 weeks!), it's obvious that this is what quite a lot of other folks are after too. I can't wait till they start doing dinners - and we're going to try to get there earlier next week in order to catch the scones.
Shame they've lost the bar billiards table though - I wish the the new owners could have bought that from the brewery along with the building!