Speak to regulars such as Mags Thomson, who has visited almost every branch, or the writer and former pub manager Kit Caless, and you will hear devotion in their voices.
The late reggae DJ Derek Serpell-Morris liked to plan his tour itineraries around visits to the pubs. The menu, though not fantastic, is consistent. And, crucially, the drinks are cheaper than anywhere else. What unites its drinkers — students, pensioners, the unemployed — is limited resources. It offers a welcoming blandness.
Before long, he became a regular. As he sat at the bar, Martin would think about business opportunities. At one stage, he dreamed of opening a squash club.
Marler accepted. In early December, he arrived to sign a contract taking over the lease. Marler suggested Martin stick around for a celebratory drink. The two men sank a couple of pints of real ale, then a couple more, then probably one more for the road, and at some point in the early hours Martin stumbled into the street, making it a few hundred metres before collapsing outside a block of flats. He was saved from a night in the cold by two men who, after spotting him from their flat on the second floor, invited him upstairs to sleep off his condition on their sofa.
The year-old law graduate grew increasingly red faced as he struggled with the keys while his new neighbours opened up for the day. He may not have known how to run a pub, but Marler says Martin displayed a strong business mind from the start.
Well before the first pub had begun to turn a profit, Martin was on the lookout for his second premises. In he found a dilapidated former motorcycle showroom in Crouch End. Building work took longer than planned, so the pub opened in August with a tarpaulin still stretched over part of the roof. Martin repeated this process hundreds of times over the following decades.
Pub entrepreneurs before him had expanded by buying leaseholds on existing pubs. Buying non-licensed properties for conversion meant Martin could operate free of brewery ties. Of course, the breweries put up a fight. Martin based his pubs on a handful of principles inspired by The Moon Under Water , a fictional pub described by George Orwell.
Martin provided no jukeboxes, TVs or pool tables in his pubs. He insisted on high standards of service. Early on, Martin decided to raise prices. Prices have stayed low ever since. While the pubs failed to make money for the first four years, Martin ploughed on, establishing Wetherspoon's all over north London. In , Wetherspoon's turned a profit for the first time. Martin was certain his pub formula could be replicated all over the country but, to do that, he needed to take the company public.
Nevertheless, on 20 October, , J. Wetherspoon floated on the London Stock Exchange. At the time of flotation, the company was operating 44 pubs, mostly in north London. The following year, the company opened its first pub outside the M25, in Bracknell, and followed up with pubs in Norwich and Reading.
In , the company moved to new head offices in Watford and opened its th pub, The Moon Under Water, just down the road. Martin sought to instil his business philosophy in the expanding management team.
He had long been a voracious reader of books by business titans and none influenced him more than Walmart founder Sam Walton. But that was what was expected and I totally got to see why.
Price was a sticking point in negotiations, and the brewery refused to budge. And he did. Wetherspoon's did everything it could to gain the upper hand in negotiations. At the time, pubs typically relied on breweries to deliver beer and provide dispensing equipment. Wetherspoon's established its own distribution network, bought its own taps, and forced prices down. When I was at Wetherspoon's we sold 12 million pints of beer a week. The logistics of finding 12 million pints of short-dated beer is just impossible.
The reason they get their prices so low is absolutely, percent down to volume and having their own distribution network.
In the company opened pubs, including seven on one day, and was recruiting people a month. Martin could no longer handle all the licensing hearings on his own. John Hutson, who joined the company as an area manager in , was chosen to share the burden. The two men travelled the country, Martin still carrying his papers in a plastic bag, fighting licensing battles and establishing outposts of Wetherspoon's wherever they went.
Martin recorded many of his segments in fancy dress, appearing one month wearing a Viking helmet. From former cinemas, to renovated swimming pools, to old churches… many of the locations used to look a lot different. The Cambuslang Wetherspoons, on the outskirts of Glasgow, still maintains the quirky characterstics of an old Savoy cinema and bingo hall.
Annually, for three days only, the venue is restored to a venue where punters can go and watch some opera. Jump directly to the content. The firm was also recently affected by a shortage of some beer brands caused by driver shortages due to a combination of Covid and Brexit.
At the time, Mr Martin, a prominent Brexit supporter, was criticised on social media, although the firm said it was "heart-breaking to be letting any customer down" after such a difficult time for the hospitality sector. On Friday, it called on government to make a VAT cut that was introduced for pubs and restaurants during the Covid crisis permanent. It had lowered the prices of some items on its food menu and soft drinks as a result.
Julie Palmer, a partner at Begbies Traynor, said: "JD Wetherspoon finally began recovering from the turmoil the pandemic and Covid restrictions had put it through, to be greeted with a supply chain hangover and staff shortages. She pointed out that affordability had always been the brand's selling point, but that the chain might have to rethink that strategy as supply chain issues and rising costs hit.
Wetherspoons runs low on some beer brands. Pubs and restaurants counting on Christmas cheer.
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