We need to talk about Wetherspoons

 

This needs developing... I'm parking it here for a while as a reminder we have to talk about JDW
 

As a retail format JDW lacks imagination, rather like its founder Tim Martin, it's formulaic, dull and boring. Something like the Morrisons of branded chain pub companies. BUT to be fair, huge numbers of people who can't afford to go to The Pub generally can afford to go to JD Wetherspoon, and the chain is an important/significant part of the British pub sector. The figure for average weekly sales of food at JDW pubs is over £16K and there's more than 800 JDW around the country. Nationally that's around £13 Million a week. That's a significant amount of meeting demand across a part of the population for whom access to decent ale houses and good fellowship are out of reach. Besides that JDW are as good as the management and the Barge has a good manager in Cesare Kimbirima. Food is generally good here within the confines of a centrally planned and mass distributed ingredients menu, and the beer is always well kept. And it is affordable to most people who otherwise simply cannot afford to socialise. There's nothing imaginative about the Brockley Barge outside of the standard JDW format BUT it's ALWAYS friendly, it's always safe and sometimes the atmosphere absolutely jumps with the joy of people coming out to congregate. I could split hairs about the way things are done at JDW, the whole chain COULD be MUCH better than it is if it were not infused from top to bottom with the character of its founder but there's no other pubco doing anything consistently as well that I know of. When it comes to the Barge as my local I absolutely love it. Consider myself lucky. Without the Barge Brockley would be diminished