The Fat Cat

The Fat Cat is a public house and former hotel located on Alma Street in Sheffield. It was built in the mid-19th century, with a mid-20th century toilet block added later and a late-20th century brewery. The building is constructed of red brick with a white painted panel featuring an advertisement on the corner. It has a slate roof with end, ridge, and mid-roof stacks.

The pub occupies a corner site and has two bars at the front, separated by a corridor. It stands three storeys high, with four bays facing Alma Street and two bays facing Cotton Mill Walk. The rounded corner features a blocked entrance on the ground floor. The central entrance on Alma Street is flanked by two sash windows on the left and two three-light casements with a transom on the right, all set within a shopfront. Above the doorways is a fascia panel supported by two console brackets. The ground floor windows have etched glass, while the first floor features sash windows, with late 20th-century joinery above.

Inside, there is a small entrance lobby with a mosaic floor that bears the legend "CANNON ALES," dating from around 1912. A corridor with a terrazzo floor leads to the bars on either side and a doorway to the servery on the right. The servery is three-sided and has a canopy with coloured glass overhead and a clock beneath a rounded pediment. This servery is said to have been a payment kiosk brought from a Co-op butchers in Rotherham around 1981.

Historically, the pub was taken over by William Stones Ltd, brewers of Cannon ales, in 1912 and was renamed The Fat Cat in 1981. A home brewery was established in 1990, known as the Kelham Island Brewery. The Fat Cat is a well-preserved example of a mid-19th century pub and former hotel in an industrial area of central Sheffield, providing leisure and refreshment for working men and accommodation for travellers before the rise of modern hotels. The exterior and layout remain largely unaltered, aside from the addition of the toilet block, and the building continues to be an important part of the working industrial environment.