Our homely Guest House, Brasserie and Bar is situated in a superb location right on the seafront on Shanklin's Esplanade, with panoramic sea views and just a stone's throw from the sandy, Blue Flag 2012 and Quality Coast Award 2012 beach. This is a perfect place for a family beach holiday with the children or a peaceful weekend break away from the hustle and bustle of the mainland.
The Waterfront Inn is family-run Guest House / B&B / Hotel with 8 bedrooms, all en-suite, 5 of which have sea views and all offer bed and breakfast. We appreciate that our guests' enjoyment is the key to our success and we endeavour to offer high standards in customer service together with a personal touch. We welcome dogs, and pets in general, throughout the hotel.
We are a free house and offer a wide selection of Isle of Wight ales, lagers, wines & spirits, together with a straightforward, homely menu that features local steaks and seafood in addition to the usual seaside favourites.
Why not come and unwind with us – enjoy a leisurely meal or just a long cool drink in our bar or outside on our sun terrace – all giving panoramic sea views from Shanklin across Sandown bay towards the white cliffs of Culver Down.
We offer live music most weekends during the summer season. There is free Wi-Fi available throughout.
The Isle of Wight is blessed with Britain's best weather and Shanklin, also known as the 'jewel' of the isle, offers a lovely climate since it is on the south-eastern corner, attracting the warm winds that allow the natural growth of tropical flowers and vegetation.
It's two years (no, really, it is!) since Catherine and David took over the Waterfront Inn. So many changes, so many pints of beer! ... and so many lovely, loyal customers - thank you all for making the last 2 years such a pleasure.
To celebrate, we're having a party on Friday 1 June with a mini beer festival. At least 5 cask ales plus a draught scrumpy cider will be available. There'll be many special things on the menu and lots of live music - please come along so we can say 'thank' you' for supporting us.
With the Summer nearly upon us (it is!), unfortunately we cannot offer our beer-battered fish on Fridays until further notice. We need a re-equip of our kitchen to be able to offer this on a regular basis and we are trying hard to make this happen - watch out for more information.
Our Monday Curry Nights have not proved popular and so we have suspended these as well. Hopefully they'll be back in the Autumn - we'll keep you updated here.
The origins (sorry!) of the Waterfront Inn date back to 1800 when it was known as Norfolk House – in 1858, whilst he was finishing off The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin stayed here for a few weeks and remarked in a letter "We think this the nicest seaside place we have ever seen".
As we now know, Darwin was a most intelligent and perceptive man! You can read more about his stay at The Norfolk House Hotel here.