Neverspoons.

[Rev+]

Alcohol doesn't heal sadness, it just puts it out of focus, as Cathal Coughlan said (sung).  He might have got that from somewhere though.

(Belter of a new page moment)

[Cloud]

Nothing else is going to fix the misery any time soon, so alcohol WILL DO

[beanheadmcginty]

Can we just circle back and discuss that Neverspoons app? Is it seriously just something that tells you where your nearest pub is that isn't a Wetherspoons? Surely that is laughably basic, redundant and deserves zero publicity? It's not as if Wetherspoons pubs disguise their true selves.
If this was a high tech optional extra on a 1993 Jaguar XJ6 then it would be quite impressive. But nowadays? Pathetic.

[phantom_power]

It highlights which ones are Wetherspoons which might not be obvious if you were just looking for a nearby pub

[Huxleys Babkins]

I used to really enjoy Wetherspoons' food, but it did seem to take a dip in quality and go up in price a few years back.

God knows how bad it'll be if he ever gets his dream of cheaper, shittier food imports and kitchen staff on £2 an hour.

[Captain Crunch]

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).

I've mentioned this before but it's baffling why they don't seem to make a fuss of this.  I could be missing something but as far as I know there's not even a feature on the website for the notable ones and they do have some jewels: 


Harrogate


Torquay


Ramsgate

I'm only going by the ones covered in the guided tours I attend but there seems to be a grudging appreciation.  On one hand no-one really LOVES Wetherspoons but in many cases the buildings would otherwise have been demolished or left to ruin. 

[Captain Crunch]

Forgot my favourite, the Black Horse near Birmingham.  Superb example of a reformation pub and has some beautiful carvings, especially if you get 'lost' looking for the toilet upstairs:



Speaking of toilets, a lot of them are part of the community toilet scheme.  It's not as nice as having decent public toilets but sadly that's a rarity in most places now. 

[Huxleys Babkins]

That's probably what I miss the most about Spoons. The cavernous bogs and their respecting the character of the building they've moved into. You don't usually get that from other chain pubs.

[drummersaredeaf]

The Llandudno one is fantastic too - an old theatre.

[notjosh]

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:

There's another nice ex-cinema one in Forest Hill:


My only experiences in Wetherspoons have been sedate daytime affairs, but I definitely rate them for their unfussy vegan menu. I do prefer independently-run places, but to be honest I don't think too much about whether my hard-earned cash will end up lining the pockets of some cunt, otherwise I'd never eat or shop anywhere.

[pigamus]

I hate Tim Martin and I've reconciled myself to never going in a Spoons again, but I still hate the snobbery they attract. I don't know where these unbearable hellhole ones are. I've never been in one.

[alan nagsworth]

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

I'm going to have to beg to differ here. Spoons is noticeably cheaper than most other London boozers (unless you're anywhere near central London in which case you're a cunt for ever choosing to drink there for any purpose besides pre-gig lubrication). A pint of some piss or other like Foster's or 1664 is upwards of £3.50 in most places, whereas zone 3 Spoons do a pint of Shipyard for £2.50. I am happy to be pointed elsewhere but in my experience this is very often the case.

[alan nagsworth]

I hate Tim Martin and I've reconciled myself to never going in a Spoons again, but I still hate the snobbery they attract. I don't know where these unbearable hellhole ones are. I've never been in one.

Try The Wrong 'Un in Bexleyheath. Yes, that's seriously the name of the pub. Bleaker than most working mens clubs.

[Captain Crunch]

I don't know where these unbearable hellhole ones are. I've never been in one.

Eltham.  You know that joke, how can you tell a posh Wetherspoons?  You can't smell the piss from outside.  That's true of the Banker's Draft in Eltham.  Stinks of piss, the staff are rude, it's cramped, all the chairs are wobbly and the constant drone of "FACKING BLACK BITCH FACKING CUNT" banter of the regualrs is enough to make your eyes hurt. 

[Captain Crunch]

There you go, DA6 and SE9, you can do them both in the same day :)

[pigamus]

Yeah, to be fair the one is West Brom is pretty rough. But it's more a problem with small towns being fucked over by decades of Thatcherism than anything else - or just small towns in general. I can't blame Tim Martin for that. And I still think there's a fuckton of exaggeration and snobbery mixed in to the way some people talk about them.

[Blinder Data]

This is an interesting article: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/tim-martin-wetherspoons-long-read-brexit-remain

However I don't like the premise that, just because the chain is considered a national institution and is used almost as a civic space, we ought to use them or think that they are in any way good.

[earl_sleek]

I don't have a problem with Wetherspoons as a company if you take Tim Martin out of the picture, and any boycott will hurt the staff long before he even notices. I just hope he catches a slow painful degenerative disease for which there is no cure, so his money cannot help him.

And then is gored by a moose.

[Sherringford Hovis]

I saw a moose in a 'Spoons in Glasgow, nibbling on a chip. I avoided any "loose aboot this hoose" japery as Balornock Lives Matter would deservedly #cancel me for tartanface.

[earl_sleek]

^ Beware Martin, you two-first-named cunt.

[A Hat Like That]

Yeah, to be fair the one is West Brom is pretty rough. But it's more a problem with small towns being fucked over by decades of Thatcherism than anything else - or just small towns in general. I can't blame Tim Martin for that. And I still think there's a fuckton of exaggeration and snobbery mixed in to the way some people talk about them.

but, again, the building is nice

[George Oscar Bluth II]

I've always been a Spoons apologist. It's certainly true that they're not the only cheap places to drink in central London[nb]I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Sam Smiths places in Zone 1 if you're interested, although that's another chain with a deeply problematic owner so...[/nb], but they're everywhere, cheap, usually spacious and generally not packed full of cunts.

And out of London on football awaydays they tend to be the kind of places that are at least grudgingly accepting towards out of towners, which can't always be guaranteed. And it's always struck me that you get a variety of people in them, students, post work suits guys, old geezers, football fans, pre-gig drinkers...the works.

And I absolutely loathe the snobbery towards them.

But Martin's disgusting behaviour pre-lockdown turned me. I didn't give a fuck about the Brexit stuff, but his casual attitude towards his staff and customers was too far. So I'll be going elsewhere, until the chain is nationalised, as is right and proper.

[The Mollusk]

but, again, the building is nice

That's a deceptive looking building. I get the feeling I'd nip in for a piss and inside there would be a village fete and everyone would be wearing animal masks and the grand raffle prize would be my arsehole. They'd shackle me up in the toilet in some sort of reverse stocks glory hole situation for any of the locals to come in 24/7 and have a go on me. They'd tear me up worse than a complimentary naan bread on a takeaway order that's turned up 45 minutes late whilst snarling "that's what you get for needing a piss round here" in my ear. Sorry but that's just not my thing at all.

[pigamus]

I also hate they way we're supposed to genuflect to him just because he provides jobs. Yeah, so did Victorian mill owners.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I also hate they way we're supposed to genuflect to him just because he provides jobs. Yeah, so did Victorian mill owners.

Well said. All tyrants need dogsbodies.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Neverspoons is about independent venues. Small businesses and people that need your money, not corporations or chains.

Probably already shared this opinion a dozen times but

- Taking over nice venues is fine but remember they are the franchise squatting in the husk. They deserve credit for saving the venues, restoring some of them and for exhibiting them for others but I find it depressing to sit in a glorious theatre reduced to hosting the clatter of dinner plates and echo of dying conversations. Also, most Spoons venues remain fairly unremarkable.

- No sense of community, an atomised bastardisation of the pub. An waiting lounge with transient individual groups remaining together and not mixing (some will claim that's what a pub is now, but bollocks).

- Drinks are varied, okish and cheap. Food is passable at a push and cater for dietary requirements. Low price but you don't get a penny more value, you get what it's worth and no more.

- Martin is an irredeemable person, the politicising of Brexit and the other self-serving propaganda about tax was hideous and he showed just how much he cares about his staff.

- That their is any cult appeal at all is depressing to think about. This isn't even snobbery. I've been on many occasions. People are rightly touchy about any suggestion of insult to people on low incomes but its insulting to people on low incomes to suggest they don't have any other places to turn to or imply they lack the individual agency to discern these things for themselves or that they should feel cheapened by something like Spoons being objectively criticised. That's a bit of nonsense in my opinion. I think some people just take the criticism personally, and react by desperately trying to shore it up. There's a reason why the average good pub doesn't look like an old trading hall or a theatre, because the genius locii of a pub has absolutely fuck all to do with what Wetherspoons offer, which is segregated food and drink in a vacant open plan atmosphere akin to the bar area of a bowling alley.

[flotemysost]

The Coronation Hall in Surbiton is also a beaut (another former cinema):

I'm going to have to beg to differ here. Spoons is noticeably cheaper than most other London boozers (unless you're anywhere near central London in which case you're a cunt for ever choosing to drink there for any purpose besides pre-gig lubrication). A pint of some piss or other like Foster's or 1664 is upwards of £3.50 in most places, whereas zone 3 Spoons do a pint of Shipyard for £2.50. I am happy to be pointed elsewhere but in my experience this is very often the case.

Oh I'm sure you're right, to be honest over the last few years the times I've gone into a Spoons for anything other than a slash are few and far between, aside from the ones in airports (which I'm guessing can charge whatever the fuck they want).

In fact I think the last time I had a drink in a Spoons was at the Windmill in Stansted last year, named the best pub in the world according to this rather generous headline on the Wetherspoons website. The view of the terminal is quite nice tbf.

[pigamus]

What's the one if Cardiff - the Prince of Wales? I was a student there when it opened, a gorgeous building.

[bgmnts]

Prince of Wales packs them in like sardines half the time. It is a nice looking building though.

[thenoise]

Haven't been in a spoons for years, but I defend them (5 years ago) on two accounts:
1. I agree on the breakfast front. Not as good as a 'proper' cafe breakfast, but less than half the price with as much free coffee as I can drink, and nobody gives a fuck if I sit about til noon drinking it and reading the paper.
2. It's about the only pubs in the land I can go to by myself, get a meal and drink etc and nobody tries to talk to me.