The secret of JD Wetherspoon's success: Let's raise a glass to the great British institution that is Spoons

The chain has its fair share of critics but there’s a reason its pubs are always packed out.

Pub giant JD Wetherspoon runs more than 800 pubs across the UK and Ireland, including Dunfermline’s Guildhall & Linen Exchange. Picture: Scott Reid

The last thing I want is to sound like a cheap ad for JD Wetherspoon. Or become a mouthpiece for the pub giant’s divisive founder and chairman Sir Timothy Martin - the arch-Brexiteer’s ego requires no additional inflating.

However, I’m struggling to think of anywhere else a penny-pinching punter can procure a pint of half-decent ale or lager for under three quid these days. Or, if feeling a bit peckish, combine that with a far-from-scanty main meal and still get change out of a tenner.

Ok, gratuitous plug out the way, just what makes Spoons the success that it is? Well, the pricing clearly helps. Despite the odd hike here and there amid those unavoidable inflationary pressures, your bill still makes it feel like you’re stepping back a decade or three in time. And, some regional variations aside, those prices and menus are pretty consistent. Step into one of the 800-odd Spoons dotted around Britain and you know pretty much what to expect, even if the name above the door varies and an unfamiliar decor initially catches you out. Better still, it sounds like a proper boozer ought to sound. Lots of punters blethering, laughing, arguing. No booming sound system or deafening TV sets.

Love ’em or hate ’em Sir Tim, who founded the chain in the late 1970s with a single pub in Muswell Hill, London, naming the business after one of his teachers, has been out busting some of the “urban myths” surrounding Wetherspoons. Defending his burgeoning empire from attacks over the quality of its draft beers, standards of cleanliness and treatment of staff, the plain-speaking businessman has also been keen to dispel the notion that his keep-it-simple watering holes do not attract customers in higher income groups.

I doubt I qualify as much of a high roller so can’t provide much insight on that last one but I will defend good old Spoons when required (and, just to keep the records straight as a business writer, no, I don’t own any shares in JD). However, I feel my passion might be only half full. I’ve a friend who’s attempting to do a Munro special and bag every Spoons on the map. To him, I raise a pint.

Scott Reid is a business journalist at The Scotsman