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Comment by jmkni | Hacker News Reader

I love sitting alone in Wetherspoons, and working, it's actually perfect because:

- None of my colleagues, and nobody in any of my social circles, would ever be seen dead there

- You meet the best people, everyones really nice

- Nobody judges anybody, we're all just there go get a bit pissed, lots of people socialising, some people are there doing a crossword, I'm just a guy sitting on my laptop coding, nobody cares

- I can focus better with lots of background noise

- Cheap beer

If you've not tried it, try it!

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I recommend only sitting on a leather seat, or laying a waterproof jacket over a cloth seat. Too many times I've come out of Wetherspoons itching - and not from knackering my liver!

Worth it though for ~£1.30 unlimited tea and coffee.

Coffee refills too! And the characters, especially in the day time. I probably wouldn't say they're /all/ nice people.

Apparently Wetherspoons is British? Never heard of it. Now I'm curious to the characters inside, got some memorable anecdotes?

The Lord Rosebery, Westborough, Scarborough. Friday around 6pm. Plenty of people watching potential. You sort of have to be there.

It is a chain of very cheap pubs, often known by the abbreviated name "spoons".

It's the sort of place you can go at 9am and see people having a full English breakfast with a large glass of wine. It's people who want to drink a lot of alcohol for not a lot of money, but not quite at the point where they're buying very cheap cider (which is always alcoholic in the UK), and sitting in the park with it. There's a veneer of high-functioning about it.

They do vary a bit (the "posh pub" in central Hull is the 'spoons, one of the roughest pubs I've been to in West London is also a 'spoons), but the clientele are typically white, working class, pro-Brexit (the founder is very anti-EU and publishes an in-house propaganda mag to that effect), pretty right wing, heavy drinkers.

It's not my preferred crowd, I'd rather spend a bit more and go to a pub where there's a chance somebody is reading something other than the Daily Mail or The Sun, but each to their own.

> pro-Brexit (the founder is very anti-EU and publishes an in-house propaganda mag to that effect), pretty right wing, heavy drinkers

That's a massive stretch. In my experience, the common denominator with Wetherspoons is it's somewhere people go for the cheap drinks and food. You get people of different backgrounds, age ranges and political beliefs going to Wetherspoons pubs (including plenty of apolitical people). The only undeniably true statements is that Tim Martin was pro-Brexit and there was anti-EU material in the Wetherspoons magazine around the time of the Brexit referendum, but beyond that it's not an issue that's particularly high profile anymore, it's not part of daily conversation like it once was, many people have moved on from discussing it.

Can recommend the Mediterranean side salad and a bowl of roasted veg off the side menu if you are hungry.

In the centre of the city there are three spoons. One for the people with tattoos on their knuckles (near the magistrates' court oddly - I used to pick up gossip in the barbers round the corner but he has been bought out so the building can be converted in to 'luxury apartments'), one for the old geezers with leather jackets and a third very large one opposite a conference centre. This latter one very well managed and always a seat. All kinds of people but never rammed.

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