Man your pumps, Wetherspoons are coming

Did my requisite visit to Keavens Port today. Garden tables completely fully, main body of the pub quite busy with a primarily 40+ male crowd; but the little rooms at the front were all empty and that's probably the nicest place in any 'spoons in the city.

Contact tracing setup at the door is a tad convoluted and is using two staff - I'm sure Tim Martin is counting down the days til that's gone.

I still won't be back.

Did you get to see the old section of a church alter that is inside it, whats that like? Do they have tables right around it or how is it laid out?

And why no return, too busy or something else? Wont get to go for a few weeks myself but thats no bad thing when the staff are still getting up to speed

I think it all depends where you are. If the town where you live has a brewery nearby, you will most likely get a local beer on tap. But also hopefully when more normal service returns, the craft offerings in pubs will return. I think a lot of them ended up doing quite decently during the time pubs were shutdown.

Yeah I am sure it is quite tough.

Probably depends on the town itself. I'm talking as a person living in Bray, where the majority of the pubs have Wicklow Wolf or Larkins or O'Brother. Go to Greystones/Kilcoole/Shankill/Killiney/Dalkey or smaller places around the area and they will be mostly the same aswell.

Thinking of Sligo where I was recently, where most pubs had White Hag/Lough Gill. Or North Mayo were I had a 4 euro pint of Reel Deel in Kilala.

Where did you see that?

I presume its about this, some beers are not being stocked in Spoons

He was also on about not being able to get staff and wanted the Tories to introduce special visas to get eastern Europeans back into the UK. So far the Tories are saying that British businesses need to hire British staff but the haulage industry in particular needs 100,000 HGV drivers or theres going to be even more shortages in the run up to Christmas. Its certainly ironic that he was one of Brexits biggest backers and is now at the coal face of the effects of it.

The only downsize to this is where will the Weatherspoons clientele migrate to?

They might start attending, heaven forbid, nice bars. An awful thought.

If you like to line the pockets of that odious individual that is your choice.

Others have higher principles.

Its pretty ironic to be complaining about lining Tim Martins pockets on a digital device that contains cobalt and lines the pockets of mining companies in the Congo who use child slave labour. I mean if someone finds Tim Martin politics abhorrent enough for a boycott then surely they should be throwing away their phones and laptops too.

The successful business man, you mean?

Every time I've been in a Spoons in Dublin at the weekend its been either busy, or very busy. And I presume thats not just my own anecdotal experience, given the fact they keep expanding quite quickly, and expanding into very large capacity locations at that.

So a minority (and/or pub owners) can complain as much as they want about the Britishness, or the owner's politics, or anything else. But the general public is voting with its feet pretty clearly - they seem delighted to have Spoons here. Which isn't that surprising given the ripoff prices in 'normal' pubs really.

When/if we get to a stage where we have 5-10 Spoons in the city center its going to make things very interesting. The normal publicans can ignore them when its only 1 or 2 locations, but once they're in a position to really start making a dent in the market it might lead to some real price competition.

There are plenty of Irish publicans who treat their staff like sh1t and have them on minimum wage but you dont hear people complaining about them. Seems because Martin is English he is targeted yet his pubs pay above minimum wage, they even pay for university education for some of their staff. I dont agree on his Brexit positions but he is entitled to his views, as are we all in a democracy. Dont drink there if you feel that strongly about it, problem solved. But next time you're over in the UK looking for a pint make sure to ask the publican if they voted for Brexit or not, just to make sure your principals arent being breached 👍️

If we were to live our lives on principals and how businesses operate then you might as well knock off your electricity, throw away your phone and never buy clothes again. All of those industries commit human rights abuses far in excess of anything Tim Martin has ever done.

Can I take it that JD Wetherspoon are doing well in Ireland?

All locations?

I was surprised that they sold some pubs in NI.

I wonder will the Galway pub go ahead?

And what is happening with the pub in the Dublin docklands?