[Closed] 'Spoons. Back to the 80's?

is dissapoint.  was expecting more of this

At 8am scoffing an English breakfast too no doubt.

I was expecting this.

I can see why they are popular.

I can't. Cheap booze aside, the atmosphere is typically abysmal, no music, brightly or garishly lit, sticky carpets, tables and bars.

I had a couple in the one on the site of the old Marquee Club, nice beer, friendly bar staff, and (for London) a great price. Not a great deal of atmosphere, true, but for a quick drink to kill time while my wife & daughter went to Primark it was fine.

The pub by Kew Bridge was much nicer, of course, but 13 quid for a large house red and a pint... Ouch.

80s prices is pretty progressive compared to Big Tim's 70s attitude.

I can see why they are popular.

I can’t. Cheap booze ......

Cheap booze is why

Never been into a Weatherspoons.
I have been into a pub that subsequently became one. No urge to go there again.

Just to check the one at the Holborn end of union Street.

Best described as a garishly lit cave.

Does have a nice front from the old cinema yes.

Food is cheap and usually ok too. Also you can order it on your phone to avoid all human contact. Free refill on tea too. No fan of the owner but they can be good.

Price of beer (and soft drinks) has gone a bit crazy so good to see pubs that do their own thing

1988
Heineken 88p a pint
Wifebeater £1 a pint

In the north

TR, no, the one in Inverurie.

Ok you had me worried for a minute there.

Actively avoid the one on Union Street as much as I'd avoid soul bar .....

And that's not to say I'm a weather spoons snob....had a fine enough day in the one back home on Friday sat by a window with good company.

The one in Warwick is well posh, go to the one in Leamington if you want a fight

Had my first Spoons breakfast this morning - decent enough for the money.

I like them on the whole - often interesting old buildings, the Cambridge ciñema one is great, decent range of ales at decent prices, food is good value for what it is.

A couple of Remainer friends now refuse to go in them for political reasons.

The Commercial Rooms in Bristol is great, a fantastic building that happens to sell reasonably priced (cheap) ale and quick hop and skip to the deliciousness of St Nick's Market food stalls. The one in Hartlepool does the job when the Rat Race in the station is closed too.

I've been in loads of 'spoons, some grim and sticky and some in really nice buildings. I've had good and bad service, good and bad food, good and bad beer and I wouldn't dream of reading their own magazine. But I have to admit about 1 Sunday a month I take my 3 girls to our local one (well, until it flooded!), primarily as it's cheap (which matters to me) and trouble free. There is no music, so we all chat and the youngest has free wifi for when she gets bored of us. It's not the pinnacle of our social calendar, but it's easy and cheap. Equally I love a cheeky 'spoons breakfast and a pint before a lunchtime kick off, it's a rare treat.
I go to a lot of other places too, some a lot nicer. I get why people don't like them but I haven't got the enthuse to get wound up by them. I generally apply the same principle I apply to any pub, if I go in and it's shite, I leave.

It's £2.05 for a pint of ale in my local Spoons but with my CAMRA 50p voucher that comes down to £1.55 for a decent beer. For a quick pint on a Saturday afternoon it's bang on. I wouldn't venture in there of an evening though.

I had a spoons all day breakfast a few months ago. A couple of hours later I filled my pants. No warning, just hot trousers. Aint going there again 🤣.

I’ve been in some awful holes with blasting music and prices of drinks that are astronomical. I go to a spoons for a cheap drink or organised day out but not if I’m out for nice food and a better quality bar.

Cougar

Subscriber
80s prices is pretty progressive compared to Big Tim’s 70s attitude.

I'll be making this into a poster that each of my kids can hang in their room in halls at university.

Shite pubs for ****s.

Just been to Unicorn Hotel in Ripon for a quick dwink before we ate somewhere else. £1.99 for a pint of Doombar (6 other ales to choose from at the same price) & about £3.50 for a large glass of Pinot.
Just as good an atmosphere as any other big pub but without the high prices.

Some dreadful arsery on display here.

I don't mind where I spend my hard earned. Whilst traveling c2c earlier this year I ate and drank in a Wetherspoons in Penrith.

I was famished was bloody glad of it late one night, its not fine dining but then I'm not a snob. 😋

Like you've never had a Gregg's.

"Dreadful arsery" is a great description, and fast becoming the default setting round here!

It wasn't a spoon!

Srsly, the only reason folk go in is price, everything else gets moaned about.

It's corporate price driven competition killer stuff, support independents instead of that Brexit idiot.

My town got a spoons in 2018. It's always very busy. They brought a derelict 1960s council building back into use, spending >£1million on it.

In the near 2 years its been opened no other pubs have closed (there are ~10 other pubs within 5 minutes walk), in fact 2 have undergone massive refurbs and 2 new mini bars have opened specialising in gin and cocktails respectively. 'Spoons don't allow dogs in, they allow kids in (until 9), there is no music, sport or entertainment so they do leave a lot of leeway for others to compete. It looks like they've brought something new to the town and forced other run down pubs to up their game.

Yes there are issues with its blandness, and yes Tim is as fanny but they are doing a good job of shaking up the UK pub, restaurant and café trade (because they're really all 3).

Can’t remember the last time I had an alcoholic drink in a ‘spoons but there’s one near a site we do a fair bit of work on & they are happy for us to buy a coffee in the morning and keep the mug for our lunchtime and ‘before we go home’ brew. Might just be auto machine made but it’s perfectly drinkable and very cheap.
Fridays that we are there I buy the guys breakfast and again, it’s not the best ever but is good for the price.
All in  a lovely old building that would probably have ended up as a massive hmo or demolished otherwise.

I forgot about one of 'Spoons great innovations - ordering by app. We often end up in 'Spoons when we're on the road with the kids because you can just grab any old table and order one handed via the app while wrestling some kids and doing colouring in with the supplied crayons. Oh and they keep a bottle warmer behind the bar as well and always have good baby change facilities. I'm not massively keen on taking my kids into pubs but they really do cater very well for families. I appreciate folk with kids probably puts other people off but then Tim has done the maths and worked out that me needing to feed 5 people quickly will yield more profit as two old gits supping pints of Ruddles Best all week.

Regular Spoons user. As to his politics. Wellhe is with the majority isn't he?

It's weird -last time I went into a Spoons, I had to immediately leave. The sheer mass of people and the noise and heat coming from them made me quite anxious (this was a few months back and I was at a low point!) so we just went straight out.
Ended up eating in a Ken's Fried Chicken 😆
Do have fond memories of some lunchtime dates in the one near where I used to work, lack of music means it's a nice place to chat.

I’d rather have a brekky an coffee in one than drink in one 🙂
(Due to the noise when in full flight not a snobby streak)

You can’t deny that Tim(or someone) pretty much nailed a successful formula.

Minimum staff running quick prep food and cheap beer.

TBH politically wise he’s in a win-win,you toast success or drown your sorrows in his cheap beer whatever 🙂

I was in my local spoons last night - £13 for 3 gins, 2 pints and a soft drink. Some of the local independent pub/bars have beer at nearly the same price for 1 pint!  Happy to spend in any pub that serves a decent pint, very happy to have plenty of pubs locally (including spoons) that do just that 🙂

I forgot about one of ‘Spoons great innovations – ordering by app

My eldest daughter went to see a friend in York and they went to one of the 'spoons there.

She sent a message on our family whatsapp group saying she was hungry but didn't have any money (hmm) she told us about the app and which table she was at - within 5 mins she had a pint and some food delivered to her table bought by one of her sisters (pint) and me (food).
She was made up.
Clever idea!

It’s weird -last time I went into a Spoons, I had to immediately leave. The sheer mass of people and the noise and heat coming from them made me quite anxious

Am I correct in saying you're an avid gig goer?

Worth the journey to lossie to drink it in the Windswept taproom tho

It’s corporate price driven competition killer stuff

I get this in idea, but my actual experience of two Spoons pubs, one in the town I grew up in and the other near where I now live would do little to evidence this*. In fact the both seem to have stimulated the local market, and I've seen more business open near them and nothing close as an apparent impact of them.

In the town I grew up, they opened up in a pub that had been closed for the best part of 15 years on the market square. The town centre was very much a drink and a fight place at weekends and clientele matched accordingly. The lack of music etc seems to have brought a diversity of clients further into the town centre, more young families in the day and an older demographic in the evenings. A couple of new resturaunts have cropped up, which seem to be doing fine.

Equally in the one nearest us, a couple of new independent bars specialising more in food and cocktails have set up and brought life to a side of the town that was on it's bum without seeming to close anything else.

There could be a plethora of reasons why these happened outside of the appearance of spoons, and equally what I have seen will probably not be replicated everywhere, so I wondered if there were any facts to support spoons killing the competition. I get that it is owned by a massive gammon faced ring piece, and that chains can make life for independent's a struggle. But even when I look to my nearest city in Sheffield I see chains existing and some closing against a wonderful and ever increasing range of independent food and drink providers.

*I can confirm that absolutely no in depth business analysis has gone into this.

In fact the both seem to have stimulated the local market, and I’ve seen more business open near them and nothing close as an apparent impact of them.

Absolutely the same here, not one pub has closed, yes they had to drop prices but they were overinflated anyway due to a couple of really nice, but expensive bar/restaurants in town, lots of local pubs upped their prices accordingly off the back of those places.

Since they dropped prices, not one pub has shut, and they're all booming.

I was famished was bloody glad of it late one night, its not fine dining but then I’m not a snob.

If being a snob is not liking the filth they sell in there then I must be a snob.

I take it you have never had a spoon's curry.

That said, I love a greggs and go there twice a week..

I aspire to reach the place where filth is so debased as a concept that non artisal eggs Benedict and off trend interior styling are considered filth.

Comedienne Lynda Smith summed them up perfectly as “Smelling of oven chips and disappointment”.

Eaten in a spoons a handful of times. I don’t plan to do so again. It’s calories and it resembles traditional British fare in a processed plastic kind of way. You’d be hard pressed to call it revolting but you’d have a very small life with limited experiences if you thought it actually nice. I make better food at home which is always a benchmark for electing to eat out for pleasure. Add the lighting, the fakery, the frequent stickiness and I cant be doing with it. And that’s before the politics of the owner or the default customer is taken into account.

Beer prices are interesting though. I’m assuming they manage it by putting huge pressure on the breweries to sell to them cheap. I guess you can’t have a problem with that unless you elect to not shop in a supermarket too. I guess if you drink to get drunk or are on a budget and put beer volume high on you priority list it works for you as a customer. As someone who drinks modest amounts cost is not really an issue and doing it outside of the house is as much about the atmosphere and location. Spoons does not do that for me.

My inlaws (DM reading, brexit voting, still talks about ****s retired types) love a spoons however. Love it. But then again they elect to walk past a delightful independent cafe on the waterside where you sit outside and watch boats and birds do their thing to have a coffee at a McDs drive through with a view of a Tesco extra and an industrial park. Because it’s 25p a cup cheaper and part of their enjoyment comes from it being a bargain (in their eyes). They simply don’t see (rather than elect not to value) the difference in atmosphere that for me makes one experience a pure pleasure and the other something to only be endured to top up your liquid levels. I feel that is all you need to know about the Spoons product and their target market customer priorities.

I feel that is all you need to know about the Spoons product and their target market customer priorities.

They make all their pubs accesible and do their food menu in audio format for visually impaired people. Those bastards. Their target makret is a lot broader than you imagine.

I make better food at home which is always a benchmark for electing to eat out for pleasure.

You appear to have cheap  and convenient  mixed up with eating out somewhere special.

I feel that is all you need to know about the Spoons product and their target market customer priorities.

No, just your impression of it.