Neverspoons.

[bgmnts]

https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/07/neverspoons-app/

It seems there is a brilliant new app that highlights all Wetherspoons on a map and the independent pubs.

Hard not to love this idea, really.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Nice5

[JimminyJillikers]

My old local spoons on their first day back open:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-worker-attacked-wetherspoons-pub-22308760

[Camp Tramp]

I've got a £25 voucher that was given to me by a friend who works there but is teetotal.

I like the idea of going in there and costing them money. In January.

[Gurke and Hare]

My old local spoons on their first day back open:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-worker-attacked-wetherspoons-pub-22308760

The emphasis on them being an NHS worker in that annoys me a bit. The racist attack wouldn't be any less serious a crime if they weren't an NHS worker.

[Sebastian Cobb]

what if she was a btl-landlord?

[Icehaven]

I was a Spoons enthusiast for ages largely because of the app and the cheapness, but since the whole hideous business of how he treated his staff I feel considerably less inclined to go to them*. More and more other pubs are doing apps now, and I'm on a money saving kick at the moment so intending to go to pubs a lot less anyway (and not for at least a few weeks either), and Spoonses are surely going to be the busiest pubs right now too, so I'm giving them up. Probably end up going a few times a year on work nights out if I can't persuade my colleagues to go elsewhere but other than that nah.


*Although I'm also aware that if enough people did this and Sooons started shutting branches then staff would lose their jobs again, however I can't see that happening.

[Shit Good Nose]

I still maintain that they do a pretty good cooked breakfast.

Further, those ones that are more geared to families and food rather than the 6am shouters and screamers alcoholics really aren't that bad, at least as big chains go.

[BlodwynPig]

The emphasis on them being an NHS worker in that annoys me a bit. The racist attack wouldn't be any less serious a crime if they weren't an NHS worker.

exactly and then they splash a 'glamour' photo of the victim for those who can't read.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Further, those ones that are more geared to families and food rather than the 6am shouters and screamers alcoholics really aren't that bad, at least as big chains go.

They feel like a food hall where you're meant to FUCK OFF the second you've put the last forkful of their grey peas into your horrid mouth.

[Icehaven]

I still maintain that they do a pretty good cooked breakfast.

Further, those ones that are more geared to families and food rather than the 6am shouters and screamers alcoholics really aren't that bad, at least as big chains go.

I agree, most of the ones I used to frequent were fine, no more or less trouble than anywhere else and far more reliable food wise than a lot of other places, but it's the ethics of Tim thingo people object to mainly, first with his pro-Brexit beer mats then treating his staff shabbily at the start of lockdown (not sure exactly what happened but it was something like he sacked them all when it became apparent the pubs would be closing indefinitely, telling them all to 'go and get other jobs', then rehired them only when the furlough scheme was announced.)

Also at the moment Spoonses are almost definitely going to be the busiest pubs as they usually are anyway, so if you do want to go for a cautious pint they'd be the worst place to do it, and indies/smaller chains need the business far more right now.

[ollyboro]

Not a fucking chance that I'll be lining that walking mullet's pockets. Still, since most my work's dos  occur in a 'Spoons*.... there's my moral reason for not attending another one and my colleagues' practical reason for not inviting me.

*I work in a Wetherspoons.

[PlanktonSideburns]

I still maintain that they do a pretty good cooked breakfast.

might be true, but its all microwaved, apart from the steaks.

my partner worked for one for a bout a day and a half before walking out,it was a massive bank of microwaves, and a hob for the stakes. everything, poached eggs, (pre poached in a bag, warmed up in microwave) sausages, everything else, microwave

[Shit Good Nose]

might be true, but its all microwaved, apart from the steaks.

my partner worked for one for a bout a day and a half before walking out,it was a massive bank of microwaves, and a hob for the stakes. everything, poached eggs, (pre poached in a bag, warmed up in microwave) sausages, everything else, microwave

As it is in pretty much every similar chain.

[Cloud]

It's interesting that CAMRA (at least my local mailing list) have been urging people to support local pubs and stay away from Spoons, while they give members £30 of Wetherspoons vouchers every year...

[Shit Good Nose]

It's interesting that CAMRA (at least my local mailing list) have been urging people to support local pubs and stay away from Spoons, while they give members £30 of Wetherspoons vouchers every year...

Presumably because other pubs - even many of the chains - can't afford to do it.

[JimminyJillikers]

The emphasis on them being an NHS worker in that annoys me a bit. The racist attack wouldn't be any less serious a crime if they weren't an NHS worker.

Yeah, it's a pretty cynical way to get more views.

[Sebastian Cobb]

might be true, but its all microwaved, apart from the steaks.

A good vet could get the bacon back to life.

[shiftwork2]

Queue of cunts standing in the rain outside the 'spoon tonight so I WENT fuck THAT man and went to the hospital canteen.  I am circling spoons though and when I get in there it will be the end of Civod-19, vanquished for an eternity of burgers.

[PlanktonSideburns]

A good vet could get the bacon back to life.

bacon miced also

[Sebastian Cobb]

i'm sure it is, and like greggs have killed good bakerys they've killed off tony bastard style greasy spoons.

[alan nagsworth]

I've been a Spoons apologist for way too long (Shoulders you have permission to give a mild "told you so" but do remember I've got more hair than you so I win) but they can fuck off now. It's weird how an opinion can be changed so quickly but I try to maintain that it's better late than never in this case.

Some friends were on about pubs reopening and life going back to normal the other week and they almost acted annoyed at my anti-Spoons stance. "You'll be straight back in there as soon as we all start going out again" and "the simple fact is it's a cheaper way to get pissed in London". That sort of chat makes it sound like it's a fucking casino or something. The best odds in town, and you can never stay away for long before needing to scratch the itch! Fuck off, if that's the case I'll simply drink less. Failing that, I'd rather drink myself poor than actively patronise Wetherspoons again.

I've worked in better pubs than even the classiest of Spoons and still felt completely dehumanised by how I was treated in those jobs, so fuck knows how the poor bastards pulling £2.20 pints of Fosters at 9am on a Tuesday morning feel. I can't contribute to that.

[flotemysost]

I used to quite like going to the ones that are in interesting buildings/nice locations. In London, the Mossy Well in Muswell Hill with its handsome stained glass atrium, the canal-adjacent Ice Wharf in Camden Lock, and ex-cinema the Coronet on Holloway Road, replete with neon signage:



Oh, and the gigantic labyrinthine piss dungeon one in Soho.

I'm sure there are better examples, but those are ones I've frequented quite a bit. But loads of pubs are in nice buildings, even other cheap chain ones, it's not like they've got a monopoly on that. My current local is a right joyless minger anyway.

For a good few years I've also had no qualms about using them as public toilets (not for piss fetish purposes though).

[MidnightShambler]

Drinking in a Spoons is always a shite experience, as is eating in one. The beer is fucking terrible and the atmosphere is like a work canteen, with everybody separated into their little cliques and a telly with the BBC News on. Silent, of course.

The food is fucking awful, although the hot wings sauce used to be nice but I'm assuming that was a brand name anyway. And the twenty arseholes wanting a coffee while I'm trying to get a pint is just infuriating, they should have a separate till for food and soft drinks and a policy that if somebody is under 60 in your group, they have to do the ordering, regardless of who's paying. Hearing a Doris relay the options to her 3 deaf friends and their grandchildren while I wait for one bottle of Tsingtao is just soul sapping.

Anyway, generic Spoons experiences aside, the main gripe with the product and venue is that it isn't fucking cheap anymore. There's loads of Craft Union pubs about where it's only £2 a pint and you can get a breakfast in most cafe's for a similar price with a far better taste, so even on that level I'm surprised they are as busy as they still are.

Luckily I'll never set foot in one again after that cunt's antics so I'm not arsed what they do anymore.

[Rev+]

They've changed a hell of a lot.  In the mid-90s they tended to cheap but sort of upscale, partly down to the kind of buildings they were setting up in.  Generally lacking much atmosphere or anything interesting for sale, but 'safe' and meticulously clean.  It seemed to slide all across the UK at around the Millennium and there's no bloody way I'd go into one now, they're just bleak fighting pits.  There's a little patio/smoking area out the front of the one I walk past on my way to work and yeah, 10AM this morning it was shoulder-to-shoulder, everyone with at least their next pint on the table in front of them for when they'd finished the one in their hand.  They're just a factory at this point.

[flotemysost]

Anyway, generic Spoons experiences aside, the main gripe with the product and venue is that it isn't fucking cheap anymore. There's loads of Craft Union pubs about where it's only £2 a pint and you can get a breakfast in most cafe's for a similar price with a far better taste, so even on that level I'm surprised they are as busy as they still are.

Yeah, loads of people here seem to still go by the 'it's the only place you'll get a cheap pint in London' thing, which is bollocks - OK, so if you weigh up the cheapest option on offer in every pub then Spoons might win by pennies, but for not much more you can probably get a pint of something you actually want to drink in a place you want to be drinking in. There are loads of other, nicer, student-friendly pubs and places doing cheap drinks deals all the time.

What's the verdict on Yates? Quite want to go to that one in an old church with the pews and stained glass windows one day.

[Cloud]

Presumably because other pubs - even many of the chains - can't afford to do it.

Yeah...

Also to be fair, trying to manage some kind of voucher system for smaller pubs would probably be a nightmare.
Usually end up in one before beer festivals (friends like it and it is cheap food) so some vouchers do get used!

[Sebastian Cobb]

bellhaven pubs used to do vouchers at christmas. just give your dad cash, what if he wants to get some tabs?

[MidnightShambler]

Yeah, loads of people here seem to still go by the 'it's the only place you'll get a cheap pint in London' thing, which is bollocks - OK, so if you weigh up the cheapest option on offer in every pub then Spoons might win by pennies, but for not much more you can probably get a pint of something you actually want to drink in a place you want to be drinking in. There are loads of other, nicer, student-friendly pubs and places doing cheap drinks deals all the time.

What's the verdict on Yates? Quite want to go to that one in an old church with the pews and stained glass windows one day.

That's it, if you drink generic lagers and ciders (which most people do)  then Spoons is little to not at all cheaper than most places now anyway. And I can't think of any pub, even some of the worst ones in Bootle, that I wouldn't pick before a Spoons to drink in if I had the option.

Dunno about the Yates's these days, we've only got one in Liverpool (unless there's one I'm not aware of) now, which is just a big, expensive, glass and metal shithole at the bus stop in town, so it gets all the first drink brigade. They used to be good old fashioned places, with the barrels and the sawdust etc but I haven't been in one of those for donkeys years. If they still exist.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Used to sidle into 'Spoons and skull a double-shot of an expensive spirit either going to or on the way back from visiting my Alzheimer's Dad. For his last six months, it was both to and fro. Alcohol's more of a sticking plaster than a crutch.