August 2026. Sheffield.
Walking back from that Bass-less Loxley Sports Bar through Hillsborough, I once again fail to walk past the door of the Spoons.
This is definitely the year of Wetherspoons, and not just because I didn’t lose my 50p tokens this year. For a start, they’re my default loo stop on long urban walks now that McDonalds seem to have plumbing issues.
Their coffee has gone up a notch, the Freedom Breakfast is an all-time bargain, and that non-alcoholic Erdinger with sticky Korean chicken is a genuinely great lunch.
I come for the loo, and stay for the beer.
The Rawson Spring avoids GBG attention, but quietly serves up as impressive a cask selection as you’d want; most folks would be happy with that at a CAMRA beer festival.
The nice young man takes my token, tops up my pint, and charges me £2.05 for a cool, rich pint of Burning Sky Aurora (VERY GOOD) that will cost you nearly three (3) times that in its home town of Lewes.
Those tokens are the big subject of debate on CAMRA Discourse at the moment, folk moaning about erratic coupon validity in the early part of the week when the real ales are heavily discounted anyway.
For every person that argues cask is sold too cheap (and they mean £4 rather than the sub-£2 Spoons pints) there’s someone who’ll remind us that Tim Martin is catering for folk who otherwise wouldn’t go out for a pint at all.
Note that drippage. A bloke next to me came over to the next table and asked if he could have his beer mat. Do Wetherspoons have beer mats hidden behind the bar ?
retiredmartin 
To address the biggest issue first, in my experience pretty much all Spoons have dripmats somewhere behind the bar; the more enlightened put a couple of piles on the counter.
I’ve never had a problem using vouchers early in the week, I’ve never been told that the price has already been reduced so vouchers are ineligible.
The only issue used to be when Ruddles was less than £2, so that the voucher would have brought the price below £1.50 (I hasten to add that I’ve never stooped to Ruddles, but I have heard chuntering in Stoke Spoons).
And, to end on a high, you’re bang on about the free from sausage freedom breakfast, £3.50 in Sandbach.
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I have absolutely no qualms in using the *ahem* Camra discount vouchers. On 10/60 for my membership year so far (expire Feb 27) and fully intend to use them all. And no, I’m not part of the ‘Cheap Beer Club’ considering I’ve paid about £30 to get £30 off beer throughout the year.
The chairman of Oxford Camra mentioned on Discourse that The Royal Blenheim accept them, so good to know I can use them to sink some Titanics there.
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Unvarnished tables are the answer to the ever increasing rarity of beer mats, and to much else besides.
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In my local N London Spoons on Saturday afternoon I sat next to an elderly, well-dressed lady who bought nothing but occasionally did a circuit of the pub minesweeping undrunk beers. When she started to eat leftover food I decided it was time to leave. There’s another resident who takes up a whole booth, with laptop, phone, desktop fan all plugged in and her own haemarroid cushion. Truly you are welcome at Spoons even if you spend nothing. Cask was excellent, btw.
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Even their toilets never say “For customers only.” Spoonies is a generous free for all.
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Lana, The Gents toilets were out of bounds for most of this morning in Tim’s Piccadilly, Manchester venue which of course caused a queue for the Disabled one. And how can a 330ml bottle of Heineken 0.0 “brewed” only two miles away be £3.70 ? That’s the same as a pint of Holts Bitter in the Hare and Hounds and 35p more than a pint of Bass in the Unicorn, both the best of beer in the best of pubs, yesterday,
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More to the pub how can all the gents be out of bounds when surely it is just one toilet/urinal broken. I never understand why all the “room” needs to be closed off. There are surely more facilities in said “room.”
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Yes Lana, I couldn’t imagine what calamity might have occurred beyond the door behind a very sturdy yellow barrier.
It was nice though to see a dog in one of Tim’s venues, albeit a guide dog.
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I love seeing guide dogs in Spoonies. They are chilled at the table when the party are sat down so you can fuss them then 🙂
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Good for her. Harms no-one, good for the environment.
I do sense the tide is turning on Spoons opinion, except amongst people who will never forgive Tim for his vote in a national referendum, or who are scared of working class drinkers.
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I can take or leave Spoons. No real opinion , ideally I’d use some independent selling overpriced muck but they serve a purpose.
However in Walsall last week I had a strange experience , no guests on. Just Abbot and Ruddles.
Had to resort to keg. And it was £3.30
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AP, “minesweeping undrunk beers” is fine if the customer has left the premises but not if they’ve just gone upstairs or downstairs for ‘a call of nature’ and it’s not as if there’s a beermat about for putting over a glass to indicate that it’s not been abandoned. There’s not much wrong with eating leftover food especially if it’s salad the purchaser doesn’t like seeing going to waste.
As for the tide turning for Tim, I’m not sure about that.
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I’ve heard the media (BBC, LBC) be more positive about Spoons and Tim this last year in relation to the phone use ban, carpets, pub history etc.
And if you used social media, which I don’t advise, you’d be bombarded with Americans praising the Wetherspoons model.
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As long as she took the glasses back…
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And now “Stoke-on-Trent drinker jailed for posing as son of Spoons owner” Jay Martin.
msn.com/en-gb/news/other/stoke-on-trent-drinker-jailed-for-posing-as-son-of-spoons-owner/ar-AA2bon6k?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=6a98050d57d644cf83566482e920e6f6&ei=12
That’s not what I expect in Staffordshire.
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The headline misleads rather, doesn’t it Paul?
He was jailed for rather more than playing a make-believe game.
There are one or two, that I’d like to see jailed for actually being who they are, on the other hand.
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Yes Etu, journalism’s not what it was and headlines aren’t so reliable.
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And I’ve realised that Jay Martin is a proper avian name, like Jay Swift or Robin Partridge.
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