Inside Wetherspoon’s ‘horrible’ trio of ‘invisibility fears’ and ‘£3.25 espresso’
Three Wetherspoons have been dubbed the “worst in the UK” following the analysis of review data online.
Work from Q.R. Code Generator has found the pubs from the beloved chain that have the most and least reviews rated as ‘excellent’ on Google reviews. As we have previously reported, the three with the lowest scores were The Atrium in Birmingham, The Albany Palace in Wiltshire and The White Swan in London.
The Atrium secured just 20.19% of its votes as excellent, while The Albany Palace got just 31.76% and the White Swan 31.86%. But a little digging into their reviews on Google and TripAdvisor reveals the extent of some customer’s dissatisfaction.
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Wetherspoon refused to comment when asked by the Daily Star but did question the quality of data in passing, reminding us that all of the pubs discussed also had plenty of positive reviews.
On TripAdvisor, The Atrium got 44 of 122 ratings marked as ‘terrible’ with just 12 dubbed ‘excellent’. One review from 2024 is titled “Shocking! – Don’t go!!”
(Image: JD Wetherspoon)
“Worst ever experience in any Wetherspoons!” it said. “Whilst being at the NEC you will expect to pay a premium, this was out-and-out robbery!
“The food is twice the normal price and half the quality. A ‘small’ breakfast was small enough for a small child! The sausage was burnt to within an inch of its life, and I could count the beans on my fingers.
“The coffee, normally included is £3.25! What we had, in any high street location would have cost £10, here it was £25. Value for money – appalling! There are many alternatives, use one of them instead.”
Another review from the year before was titled “Awful place. So overpriced.” It claimed: “The food came out quicker than my Guinness. Chicken burgers apparently, they took two minutes to cook and be served! Absolutely disgusting, especially when they’re £15 each!!”
(Image: JD Wetherspoon)
Another review on Google, also given one star, read: “The one thing you expect from a Spoons is consistency. No matter where I go they are always the same, except this one. It’s awful. Ridiculously expensive beer and what appeared to be a handful of ropey oven chips, at £4.95 per ‘portion’. Absolute dog dirt, avoid at all costs.”
Meanwhile, over at the Albany Palace in Wiltshire, things weren’t much better. With 3.7 stars after more than 1,000 reviews, things didn’t seem to be too bad, but some people still had a lot to say on the matter.
One person giving one star wrote: “Was ignored at the bar for so long that I was worried I had become invisible, eventually served by a young man who looked totally fed up and tried to break the Guinness world record for the least words used in a transaction”.
(Image: JD Wetherspoon)
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Another review read: “Well what a place this is! Ordered drinks, three of them wrong and then the manager argued that they were correct. Second round, drinks wrong again, [the] manager knows best and argues that they are again.”
The White Swan, meanwhile, secured 3.7 stars on Google out of 2,000. Although many people liked the pub, some of the poor reviews focused on the service and smoking facilities.
“It was an absolute disgrace to the Wetherspoons chain,” one person said. “Out of five, there was only ever two members of staff at most front of house.”
(Image: JD Wetherspoon)
Another wrote: “The worst Wetherspoons I’ve ever been to. Service is extremely slow (it takes more than an hour to order a beer), staff is very rude. There is no smoking area, and the whole place is super filthy, even the tables are sticky and not cleaned regularly.”
A third commented: “Usual garbage service. Doesn’t matter how many people are behind the bar you usually find only one or two serving, the others are too deep in conversation.”
The opinions expressed by these customers are of course subjective, and in no way reflective or entirely encompassing of the quality of these boozers or the pub chain as a whole. There is also no evidence it took an hour to order a beer.
Keep your eyes peeled for our follow-up piece looking at the best ‘Spoons performers from the new analysis next week.
