How JDW outdoes rest of chain gang

JD Wetherspoon pubs may be scorned by the purist for adhering to a formula, but as Andrew Jefford finds, what they lack in individuality, they make up for in social diversity and a reassuringly satisfactory standard

The rise of Britain's pubcos has changed the commercial landscape of our pub trade beyond all recognition. It's just possible, though, that an unobservant member of the van Winkle family, having woken from a nap which began in 1985, might not even notice.

Our pub buildings, by and large, remain where they were. There have been refurbishments (never enough, but never mind) and licks of fresh paint, but the pub symbol on Ordnance Survey maps usually holds good, while town-centre pubs can depend on remaining fixed on the oscillating mental Sat Nav systems of local drinkers.

One chain, though, has changed the face of Britain: JD Wetherspoon. The reason is

simple: its 676 pubs are almost all new to the national inventory.

Any future architectural critic will need to take account of the work of Wetherspoon's contractors in converting landmark banks, post offices, cinemas and theatres into pubs.

It's hard to find a sizeable town today that doesn't boast a Wetherspoon. And given pubs' close links with our sense of British identity, Wetherspoon must have achieved a level of cultural importance that I suspect even its creator, Tim Martin, isn't fully aware of.

The British public has, by and large, been very good to Wetherspoon - but has JDW returned the compliment?

Let's start on the credit side: by and large, those conversions have been sympathetic. Assuming each building had reached the end of its first life, it is hard to see any other use that would have retained as much of the inner fabric of cinemas and theatres, for example, as the Wetherspoon model; mostly, those buildings would have been gutted and turned into offices or flats.

The thread with the past stays intact: these buildings remain spaces for public gathering and recreation, and help to keep town centres vibrant. The naming of its pubs reinforces those traditional links, and Wetherspoon's research department manages to come up with attractive, framed information about the building, people and place which I, for one, always enjoy reading.

If Wetherspoon can do more, it generally does - holding three days of opera at its Tunbridge Wells Opera House pub recently was a masterstroke, and, as a local resident, I'm kicking myself for missing it. Wetherspoon pubs run up to 500 events every year.

Hard to fault the offer

It's also exasperatingly hard to fault the Wetherspoon offer - at least from the point of view of the average British pub customer - which is why the chain continues to enjoy such success. It does cask ale and clean air better than the opposition. It has been laudably restrained in its use of music and screens. Its employees are mostly hard-working and well-trained. Its toilets are cleaned regularly. Something inexpensive to eat is available whenever you want it. And drinks are all competitively priced, as the celebrated local price comparisons prove.

Somehow, though, I doubt that the celebrated architectural critic Pevsner (or famous pub-loving academics such as Tolkien or CS Lewis, pub-inhabiting poets such as Dylan Thomas or Louis MacNeice, or pub-observing essayists such as George Orwell) would particularly warm to the Wetherspoon formula.

That a formula exists at all is the heart of the problem, since much of the cultural glow of the British pub is rooted in the tradition that one differs from another, reflecting individual hosts' personalities.

Those standard-issue numbered tables, that recognisable carpet, uniform, signage, those

ubiquitous food-ordering systems (first find your table), those menu cards... even if the buildings are different, the pubs feel heart-sinkingly similar once you're inside.

Step back from the British context, too, and its obsessions with low price and consequent tolerance of grottiness, plus its particular emphasis on food and mixed-drink service, barely competes with the miserable national average.

I bought a sparkling mineral water and tuna baguette in the Square Peg on Birmingham's Corporation Street last week. The water went straight into a just-washed, warm glass, while the tuna baguette appeared to have been sprinkled with water before it was served.

It only cost £3.64, but I would have happily paid a fiver for a nice, cool, well-dried glass and top-quality bread that hadn't lost an argument with the dishwasher.

I doubt that a trip to a Wetherspoon outlet will feature on the top-10 list of British outings for Italian students or Japanese tourists.

Getting the social mix right

As I sat in the Square Peg, though, a wonderful scene unfolded near by. As three young office girls tucked into fish and chips, they got chatting with two elderly ladies. The girls were black, the elderly ladies white, and four decades could have meant a yawning gulf between them. But they hit it off immediately, by turns laughing and swapping confidences.

If there's one thing that Wetherspoon gets right above all others, it's the social mix. As in a public library or swimming pool, anyone can feel at home. Which, I guess, puts JDW well on the way to becoming a national institution.