Wetherspoons
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J. D. Wetherspoon plc (LSE: JDW) (commonly referred to as Wetherspoons or 'spoons) is a British pub chain founded by Tim Martin. It is based in Watford and is listed on the London Stock Exchange, where it is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
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[edit] Common features
Wetherspoons pubs have a standard pub menu throughout the country and serve a variety of low priced cask ales, having over 650 Cask Marque accredited houses. There is often a local ale available. Pubs in the chain rarely play background music, and usually do not have televisions or screen live sports and when there is a television, the sound is muted with subtitles displayed instead. The chain has formidable buying power and until recently did not stock Jack Daniels, Bacardi or Southern Comfort products because of conflicts with suppliers. The company is based in Watford in Hertfordshire.
Many of the features aimed for in Wetherspoon pubs, such as quiet bars and reasonably-priced lunches, are influenced by George Orwell's essay The Moon Under Water, in which Orwell described his concept of the perfect pub. Several Wetherspoon-owned pubs bear the name "The Moon Under Water".
Many of the pubs are in large converted buildings that were not pubs before, such as cinemas, banks, churches or supermarkets. "The Moon Under Water" in Deansgate, Manchester - a former cinema - was once the largest pub in the world.
The decor and fittings tend to be in a faux-Victorian public house style with the addition of photos of the local area and information boards concerning local history. There is a pride in the standard of decor in the toilets, some of which have won national awards.
Along with other chains of public house, Wetherspoons is considered by some to be killing the traditional English pub.[citation needed]
Wetherspoons offers 30 minutes of Wi-Fi with every drink.
[edit] Pricing
Wetherspoons have a policy of offering low price products; they will often claim to be offering among the lowest priced coffee or burgers of any national chain. The price of cask and tap beer is almost always lower than other pubs and the pre-mixed drinks can be considerably cheaper depending upon the brand.
[edit] Food
The Wetherspoons food menu contains a variety of options; ranging from traditional English pub food, to American-style burgers, and more contemporary dishes. The chain holds "theme" food nights during the week, "Grill" night (formerly Steak night) on a Tuesday, "Curry" on a Thursday and Sunday lunches. A "Chinese" food night was operated on a Wednesday evening in some pubs, but has now been dropped.
[edit] Name
The name 'Wetherspoon' came from the first night Tim managed a pub. The locals could sense he had very little control and ran riot, eventually smashing a window with a chair. This reminded Martin of an old school teacher called Mr Wetherspoon who, just like Martin, could not control a crowd. The JD part came from the Dukes of Hazzard character JD "Boss" Hogg.
[edit] Non-smoking policy
On January 24, 2005, JD Wetherspoon announced they would be banning smoking throughout the chain, the first UK chain to do this, with all new openings from that date to be non-smoking, 60 others were to become non-smoking on May 19, 2005 and phased in all other branches through to May 2006. In the end, their May 19 2005 date was too ambitious and was not met. However, all new openings and refurbishments will be non-smoking, and, as of August 2006, JD Wetherspoon has just over one hundred non-smoking pubs. It should be noted that Wetherspoon's bans are ahead of England's across-the-board smoking ban which will come into effect on 1 July 2007.
[edit] Lloyds No.1 Bar
The company also own a chain of new-style bars, under their "Lloyds No.1 Bar" brand. These bars play contemporary music (along with corresponding music videos that are displayed on wall-mounted televisions) and often have a small dancefloor. Some sites change from traditional Wetherspoon Pubs to Lloyds Bars at a specific time each night, thus maximising the potential customer base in a geographical area supported by just one premises. Such "hybrid" pubs are referred to by company staff as WetherLloyds. Lloyds Bar has a similar food menu to the normal Wetherspoons outlets, though both the food and drink tends to be slightly more expensive.
[edit] Criticisms
Wetherspoons is well-known for its cheap prices, however in order to maintain this some pubs are often run at the bare minimum staffing levels[citation needed] which can cause long delays during times of unexpected demand, this combined with the very high standards demanded by the chains management puts enormous pressure on staff who are then often penalised in the companies CQSMA bonus scheme for failing to meet very tight targets despite the high work load. This in turn brings about a very high turnover of staff.
