There's something that will never grow old: sitting at a pub's back patio that feels like I'm in a neighborhood home. It's better because there's not the pressure of tip toeing in someone else's home, or if I had to take my shoes off, or if we didn't want to strike up a conversation on politics, or have a smoke, or clap loudly, or play trivia. And, the Duke of York provides just that.
Service is slow. I'm okay with it. Sort of. I bet it wouldn't be slow in the bar. The patio is something to navigate, as in the server steps out to it and says, "damnit if I couldn't be these people right now with my shoes on, cigarettes lit and politics and love talk bandied about as if they're in someone's house but they're not."