You do not need a handicap, a tee time, or any interest in golf to eat well at The Hertsmere. Script Restaurant and Bar is open to everyone, seven days a week from 7:30am, with a Modern British menu, a balcony overlooking the course, and over 250 free parking spaces outside the door.
By The Hertsmere team4 min read
The idea that you need to be a golfer to eat at a golf club is one of the sport's most persistent myths, and at The Hertsmere it is simply not true. Script Restaurant and Bar sits in the clubhouse in Elstree, 20 minutes from London and inside the M25, and it runs like any good neighbourhood restaurant. The doors open seven days a week from 7:30am, there is no membership requirement, and nobody at the door will ask whether you know your way around a scorecard.
Yes, you can just walk in
Golf clubs earned their gatekept reputation over many decades, so a little hesitation is understandable. The Hertsmere was built on a different idea, though, and we describe it as golf without the gatekeeping. The course is pay and play, and the restaurant follows exactly the same logic. If you live in Elstree, Borehamwood, Radlett, or anywhere nearby and have never set foot in the clubhouse, you are missing a Modern British restaurant with a balcony looking out over eighteen holes of Donald Steel parkland, plus over 250 free parking spaces to make arriving painless.
What Script actually offers
Script Restaurant and Bar covers the whole day rather than the golfer's traditional pit stops before and after a round. In practice, that means:
- Breakfast from 7:30am, seven days a week, for the client meeting or the coffee after the school run
- A Modern British menu that carries you through lunch and into the evening
- A Sunday roast, which fills up the way all good Sunday roasts do
- A dog-friendly welcome, so the spaniel does not have to wait in the car
- A balcony over the course, with one of the better views in this corner of Hertfordshire
The 19th hole, decoded
If you have heard golfers talk about the 19th hole, it is not extra golf. It is the bar. The round finishes on the 18th green, and the 19th is where the scorecards get settled, the stories improve with each telling, and the drinks arrive. The pleasant thing about a pay-and-play club is that the 19th hole belongs to everyone. You can sit on the balcony with a drink, watch groups play their closing holes in front of you, and enjoy all of the atmosphere with none of the sore shoulders.
Making an afternoon of it
An afternoon at the club does not need to involve a single golf shot. A pot of tea and something sweet on the balcony, a long lunch that drifts gently into the afternoon, or evening drinks while the light fades over the course all stand up perfectly well on their own. Because the restaurant is open every day, it works just as well for a Tuesday catch-up as it does for a Saturday celebration, and there is room for larger gatherings too.
If curiosity does strike while you are here, the 26-bay floodlit Toptracer range is open until 10pm, so you can send a bucket of balls into the night after a drink with no experience required. There is even a free 30-minute coaching assessment if the bug bites properly. Plenty of people come for the food and leave having accidentally taken up golf.
Table for two, or twelve
Script is open seven days a week from 7:30am, and the balcony tables go quickly on sunny weekends. Book ahead and let us look after the rest.
So no, you do not need to play golf. Come for breakfast, stay for the roast, bring the dog, and treat the clubhouse as what it actually is: a restaurant with an unusually good view. The golfers will not mind. Most of them are too busy explaining what went wrong on the 14th.
