We've used three, a bit cheap and cheerful I guess but quite good at what they do.
I quite like them and #1 loves their food. The beer is OK and the service is quite reasonable.
Actually, ordering from the Wetherspoon app is quite impressive.
Reading, Port Solent and some place near Newbury, in case you were wondering.
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If you were resident you could join CAMRA for sub £30 pa and get 50p a pint off their real ales and ciders. Abbot comes in at about £1.80 a pint.
They mostly score well for their beers (which includes how they're served, how they taste and how they're kept) with CAMRA as far as I see.
I went to one last week and it was all fine, but I think the food is slightly down on what it used to be. Can't really complain though, at those prices....
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Is it true that they have a strategy of buying beer that is close to use by dates and this gets them for preferential prices? Or is that just an Internet rumour?
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Rumour AFAIK. They buy (and sell) large quantities of beer because their pubs are busier than many, thus get discounts. And of course they are a free house so aren't tied to any brewer.
I can't think of ever going to one and finding it virtually empty, as a few of the pubs round here are. Maybe cos Wetherspoons beer is half the price...
Last edited by: smokie on Sat 25 Sep 21 at 00:59
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>> Is it true that they have a strategy of buying beer that is close to
>> use by dates and this gets them for preferential prices? Or is that just an
>> Internet rumour?
I was in a 'spoons when a manager heard a colleague spout that rumour. The manager promptly invited us for a tour of the cellar. The barrels and kegs all had a date on them and we were shown the rotation procedure. I was impressed.
Of course it depends on the staff following procedures on how 'fresh' the beer you drink is and how thorough they are on cleaning the lines. We were told every time the barrel is changed.
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Wetherspoons have strict rules for how the products are managed and served, much more than your average local. Staff can and do get fired for flouting them.
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>> I was in a 'spoons when a manager heard a colleague spout that rumour. The
>> manager promptly invited us for a tour of the cellar. The barrels and kegs all
>> had a date on them and we were shown the rotation procedure.
I'm sure that's the case. I doesn't however disprove the theory that Spoons get good deals on supplies that are approaching their expiry date. If they can buy stuff at lower cost with a couple of weeks left and have the volumes to shift it in a week then as a tightly run ship I'd expect them to do so.
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>> I'm sure that's the case. I doesn't however disprove the theory that Spoons get good
>> deals on supplies that are approaching their expiry date. If they can buy stuff at
>> lower cost with a couple of weeks left and have the volumes to shift it
>> in a week then as a tightly run ship I'd expect them to do so.
It would appear they have the means to do so: www.jdwetherspoon.com/food/food-provenance/our-distribution
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I think I heard first heard that rumour about 15 years ago, I doubt there's loads of beer sat around at brewers close to it's use by date for them to buy even if they wanted to. Especially in the quantities they buy it in.
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>..and some place near Newbury, in case you were wondering.
It's called Basingstoke.
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He's from Reading, everywhere is exotic to him
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*From* Reading? I think not. Lived there a bit though.
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Weatherspoons seems like the pub equivalent of Easyjet and Ryanair.
Aggressively negotiate on the cost base - beer, food, rental costs. Optimise efficiency with right sized and right locations. Train staff to manage food, beer etc to minimise wastage. Use low price to attract punters.
No one flies Easyjet or Ryanair for the free lounge access, in flight catering, premium seat spacing etc. It gets them where they want to be cheaply.
Weatherspoons does the same - it is the destination of choice for cheap beer and food, not haute cuisine and sophisticated ambience. It does what it says on the can - so to speak!
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Wage rises will put 30p on a pint, says pub chain
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59001720
Wetherspoons however, has announced it will cut drink prices next month on a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
Becks bottles and whisky measures will be sold for 99p at some branches. Wetherspoons said prices will be reduced at all of its almost 900 pubs but the discounts will vary.
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I watched this Channel 5 programme the other night:
tinyurl.com/69he4emw
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Oh excellent Duncan. Do we have to guess which is you?
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YADAICMFP?
I can see no reason why not!
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You will possibly find me in here
tinyurl.com/ta67kf2p
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>You will possibly find me in here
Or here maybe?
tinyurl.com/s3e672tc
Is Duncan a pseudonym for someone called Charley or James?
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"steamy sex" at the James Watt, good punning from the Sun.
'A source said: "It was outrageous to see something like that in a pub beer garden.'
would have seemed like a clue to Duncan's role, but Greenock is probably too far north.
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It was (reliably) reported that a female was 'offering her services' at a local 'spoons beer garden and was escorted off the premises. As she was shown the door, she called the manager a cheap w****. That manager was forever on the roster under her new name.
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If you scroll down you get two young ladies ranting (their words) about their breasts being sexualised by Wetherspoons when they are in fact natural and there for children. I quite agree this is very unfair on these ladies and that it’s clear their sole intent was to be ready to suckle any passing infant who might be in need of a top up.
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"The court heard Hainey and Malone now live together in Ayrshire"
Sophie must be such a dog she's made the fellas switch sides. .
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>>YADAICMFP?
Took the duration of my first coffee of the day before that twigged.
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Today I visited Wetherspoons in L**th*rh**d. I like the meal deals and haven't had the Steak Club deal for some time. I couldn't get the app to work, so had to go to the counter.
"Steak Club deal, please".
Would you like the Gourmet steak?
"No thank you, just the £8.35 meal deal, please". I have always avoided upselling.
My meal arrived - steak and chips, fine, but no onion rings, mushrooms, tomato or steak sauce. I check the menu, if I wanted those items then it's called a 'Gourmet Steak' and is £2 more.
So be careful, boys and girls, Mr Martin has gone in for some price creep. Mind you, £10.35 with a soft drink included is still jolly good value, but it's roughly 24% price increase since Covid arrived.
One good thing that doesn't change, the same high class clientele - well, I was in there - wasn't I!
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I ate in a Wetherspoons in Blackpool twice this week. I thought it quite good value. But another night we had two main courses for the price of one in a Greene King and the meals turned out £5.25 each and there was more of them. Diabolical beer though, the closest to an ale was John Smiths. So we went to Spoons for drinks afterwards (small bottle of Prosecco and a pint for £5.50-ish - can't grumble at that).
I see their all-you-can-drink tea/coffee now includes hot chocolate but has gone up from 99p to £1.20 though.
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"I ate in a Wetherspoons in Blackpool"
Hard luck. And hard luck.
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I became quite enamoured of Wetherspoons while I was in the UK. What's not to like?
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>> I became quite enamoured of Wetherspoons while I was in the UK. What's not to
>> like?
A known solution when in an unfamiliar town or city. The boss says the WI gravitates to them when out and about on their trips.
The food is nearly all out of the freezer and via the fryer or microwave, and capable of being assembled quickly by relatively unskilled people. In that respect Wetherspoons has a lot in common with other pub chains that work exactly the same way and charge at least twice as much.
Wetherspoons beer should by rights be awful, given this low cost production line approach and the outstandingly low prices, but typically the beer is well kept. Presumably because somebody, maybe the obnoxious Tim Martin, has decided it should be.
They prosper because they keep doing the job. I've come to expect other well known chains to be much less consistent as well as dearer. This includes Greene King and the stable of brands M&B owns - Harvester, Ember, Vintage, Toby, to name a few I try to avoid.
The pubs I eat in when I know where to go are usually independently run and doing home made food. I rarely have starters and deserts as they are usually from the freezer/microwave/fryer anyway.
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Spoons consistently wins accolades from CAMRA for the quality of it's beers.
I flipped through the company promotional mag that was on the table and it seemed to be a company which quite respects and encourages its staff, and takes some pride in owning and re-purposing some well established town centre buildings though I'm sure someone will be along to say how wrong I am.
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>>
>> re-purposing some well established town centre buildings though I'm sure someone will
>> be along to say how wrong I am.
>>
Thinking of a few I know. Most are positioned in town centres and probably wouldn't suit good conversion to flats.
They do employ people and no doubt add to the local economy.
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>>
>> Wetherspoons beer should by rights be awful, given this low cost production line approach and
>> the outstandingly low prices, but typically the beer is well kept.
>>
Someone told me that they purchase beer near its best by date, but this doesn't matter because they sell it so quickly. It keeps prices low.
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>>Someone told me that they purchase beer near its best by date
An old chestnut. Perhaps it happens from time to time, but they couldn't base a business strategy on that at the scale they operate on.
Many of their pubs are spectacular, including the Winter Gardens in Harrogate.
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I'm not upset about it, but if somebody can tell me what is offensive (or wrong) about my commentary on Wetherspoons yesterday I will see if I can mend my ways:)
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"I became quite enamoured of Wetherspoons while I was in the UK. What's not to like?"
The hike to the toilets? :)
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>> The hike to the toilets? :)
>>
That’s so true.
My local Spoons was previously a cinema and the toilets are at the top of three long flights of steps.
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Every Wetherspoons has its own bespoke carpet.
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>> Every Wetherspoons has its own bespoke carpet.
Almost certainly not the same colour or smell when it was installed.
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>> Every Wetherspoons has its own bespoke carpet.
>>
...except in the North, where they use different types of sawdust....
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Couldn't be anywhere near as bad as a Slug & Lettuce I visited (briefly) in Durham. Definitely a case of wiping your shoes on the way out!
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Wetherspoons - smokie
