The beauty of a Wetherspoons pub

The J.D. does indeed come from J.D. ‘Boss’ Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard. But Tim Martin’s reason for ‘Wetherspoon’ is slightly different from the commonly told version. Yes, it was the surname of one of his schoolteachers in New Zealand. But Mr Wetherspoon didn’t tell Martin he would never amount to anything – rather he struggled to keep control of his class. And when Martin opened his first pub in Muswell Hill in 1979, he feared a similar problem.

More than 40 years and nearly 900 pubs later, the fear seems ill-founded. Yes, the chain was in the news last week for its slow recovery from the pandemic, with Martin blaming the ‘drink at home’ culture acquired during lockdown. But ‘Spoons’ will doubtless be back to full strength before long. It’s simply too good at what it does. Martin’s attention to detail is legendary – he’s on the road three or four days a week, talking to punters and staff.

The pubs themselves are beautiful. Often converted from churches, cinemas, fire stations, post offices, banks and the like, each has its own individually designed carpet costing up to £30,000 and reflecting the history of the building or area. The pattern at the Queen’s Hotel in the former mining community of Maltby, for instance, incorporates a mine shaft and pit ponies. The carpets have their own website, and there’s even a colouring book, Colour Your Own Spoons Carpet.

Wetherspoons pubs don’t play music, knowing that the best pubs provide their own, in the form of chatter. This is one of the criteria in George Orwell’s 1946 essay about the perfect pub, ‘The Moon Under Water’. Several Wetherspoons have used that as their name, but usually the pubs reference a local connection.