My day in Britain’s busiest pub the place the ingesting begins at 3.30am

One of this country’s great institutions – the pub – is slowly but inexorably dying. There are now 45,306 pubs in the UK, 7,194 fewer than a ­decade ago.

Alcohol consumption, particularly of beer, is in slow decline, with consumers ­increasingly drinking at home rather than down the pub.

But you would have no idea this was the case if you stepped inside The Windmill in Essex which, when I do, has well over 650 ­people drinking pints of beer and cocktails.

What makes this even more remarkable is that these people are drinking at 5.45am. The sun has barely risen, but the inside of this pub resembles a beer festival, with not a single one of its 550 seats across two floors available.

This, however, is no ordinary pub. It is situated at Stansted ­airport, a terminal expected to welcome 3million passengers through its doors this month.

The Windmill is operated by JD Wetherspoon, a company that – like the airline industry – had managed to shake off a ­couple of rocky years caused by the Covid lockdowns.

Founded and still chaired by Sir Tim ­Martin, the pub chain divides opinion. But it manages to attract an astonishing number of ­customers, not least to The ­Windmill, its busiest location out of the 809 it operates.

To find out the secret of the company’s success – and why thousands of UK ­holidaymakers choose to start their trip away with a pint or three of Corona at ‘Spoons’ – I spent all day inside. It proved to be a long 24 hours…

3.28am

The Windmill officially opens at 4am, but if enough staff have arrived early and got through security, then they will start serving at 3.30am or even 3am.

When I arrive at 3.28am, there are already more than 50 people. As many as half have a beer or cocktail in front of them.

Kevin Sanders, 46, a business owner from Chelmsford, has a pint of Guinness, his wife Clare, 46, has a glass of pinot grigio, while their daughter, Izzy, 15, has a Pepsi Max. They are off to Jerez, in Andalusia. They’ve had only three hours of sleep.

‘We’re at the ­airport. It’s like a release. The ­holiday starts here,’ Clare explains as to why she’s already enjoying a white wine with an 800-calorie full English breakfast.

3.45am

Serena Lucas, 53, from ­Bromley, has an espresso martini ‘to wake me up’, and is sitting with her two good friends, Beccy McFarland, 38, drinking a ­strawberry and lime Kopparberg flavoured cider, and Stacey ­Norman, 35, on a pink gin. They are off to Dublin for a long weekend to visit a bar called The ­Paddocks Clonee because, ‘the cocktails look banging,’ says ­Serena, but also to enjoy a girls’ weekend without their husbands and children.

A couple at the next table, Dan Beckett, 34, and his girlfriend Louise Lewis, also 34, from Portsmouth, are off to Tenerife. They had to leave home at 12.15am.

‘But we’ve got it all mapped out,’ Louise says. ‘We’ll check in, hit the sun loungers and have a nap.’

Dan, who has three pints before boarding and no sleep, says: ‘It helps me nod off.’

4.17am

The downstairs area is already so busy that a queue of customers is allowed to the vast upstairs area ‘with runway views’. Throughout the day during peak summer ­holiday, more than 6,000 people can come through the pub’s doors. 

By 4.40am the entire upstairs (with 330 seats) is full. By 5am, people are jostling for tables and it is hard to move around. Many are on the 5.55am Ryanair flight to Ibiza. Later, a member of staff tells me wearily: ‘You soon learn when the Ibiza flights are.’

There is one table of eight young men from Norwich, most of whom are struggling to make any sense. Wayne says he’s already had three pints of Corona ‘and a few shots’ and tells me his holiday plan is to ‘get f****** slaughtered’.

Another group, from Harlow, Essex, and off to Crete, tell me the name of their WhatsApp group is ‘BallsBoobsBooze’.

6.15am

This, it turns out, is the busiest time of the entire day at The Windmill. I can hardly move. 

There’s Soph’s hen party, with 20 friends, ice buckets with ­bottles of prosecco, all laughing raucously at the contents of some goody bags that have been handed out. I am not allowed to take a peek.

Downstairs a group of 22 men, most of them wearing T-shirts saying: ‘Charlie Clarke’s stag do . . . take 2!’

‘He’s been married once before,’ his best man Kieran Mayo, 33, explains, on his third pint of San Miguel. They are off to Hamburg, ‘because we love strong German beer,’ he laughs. Charlie himself, who works as a gas fitter, has been forced to wear a skimpy women’s top. They are meeting another ten friends out in Germany.

Upstairs, there is a group of five teachers off to a colleague’s fancy wedding in Tuscany. The dress code stipulates no flip-flops. They are enjoying G&Ts.

‘Why are we drinking? Because we’re teachers and it’s a Thursday and we’re not at work,’ says Samantha Jones, 47. ‘I’m drinking because I haven’t got my kids with me,’ laughs ­Charley Gibson, 29, who has two children under the age of four.

‘I’ve got a handbag that for once doesn’t contain nappies and wipes. That is very exciting.’

7.30am

The pub quietens down. The early flights to Ibiza, Tenerife, Zakynthos and Alicante have all departed. Michael Wilkins, who has been manager at the Windmill since 2007, tells me: ‘It goes in waves. But the busiest time is between six and seven in the morning.’

Friday is the busiest day of the week: ‘That’s when all the stags and hens really come through.’ My mind boggles – today is a Thursday and I’ve already counted at least five of these parties.

In total, this pub serves 1.2million customers each year, making it the busiest Wetherspoon in the country, beating Gatwick‘s Red Lion.

9am

Despite all the pre-dawn ­drinking, this pub makes over half its turnover from food, a higher percentage than in a typical Wetherspoon (38 per cent).

And the prices are relatively high. A large English breakfast can cost as little as £6.59 in some ­Wetherspoon pubs, but in The Windmill it is £14.30.

Just five miles away, the ­Bishop’s Stortford Wetherspoon sells a pint of Doom Bar for £1.99. Here, it is £5.50.

While many customers shrug their shoulders at the prices, some are surprised by the steepness of the airport premium.

‘I thought buying two pints and a large breakfast for £27 was a bit ridiculous,’ complains Roland Buchan, 26, who works as a set builder in a theatre. 

Another, Drew McDonald, 40, a photographer off to Papua New Guinea on an Emirates flight, says: ‘My ­double cheeseburger was awful. It was just bland and it cost £15.50. If it had cost £7, I would have thought it was fine.’

A source tells me that The ­Windmill can take £700,000 or £800,000 a week, though a third, or more, of that goes in rent to the airport owner, Manchester ­Airports Group.

11.45am

After the mid-morning lull, the pub starts to swell again, but the mood is calm.

Couples and ­families with young children dominate.

Smartly dressed Kathryn Rigby, 61, a retired English teacher, is there with her husband Colin, 66, a retired college lecturer. They are ­celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary today. They are not drinking. The couple are off to their ­second home in Cabo Roig, Spain for five weeks. 

I ask why they are going for such a long time. ‘It’s called retirement, darling,’ ­Kathryn laughs. They are going to enjoy beach yoga, seeing friends and playing golf.

And why not celebrate their anniversary at the nearby ­champagne bar? ‘We’re not flashy and they are always so welcoming here. The food is good, too. The sausage with my breakfast was gorgeous,’ Kathryn says.

Noon

Upstairs, John Babbington, 66, a retired building contractor, is with his wife, Sarah, 64, two daughters in their 30s with their husbands, and four grandchildren under the age of eight. They are renting a villa near Marbella for a big family holiday.

John is drinking a brandy and ginger ale.

‘I don’t really drink. The last one I had was at Christmas. But it’s a tradition for me to have a brandy when I go on holiday.’ He laughs at my flabbergasted reaction.

‘When I was younger, I used to drink like a fish. I have a theory that we all have a certain amount you can drink in a lifetime and I got through it very quickly.’

3pm

Once again, it is heaving. The staff are rushing out with tray after tray of food or drinks to ­people’s tables, with the vast majority of customers ordering via the Wetherspoon app, rather than going to the bar.

The starting salary for bar staff is £14.48 an hour, compared with £12.97 at a central London Wetherspoon.

‘When you’re getting up at two o’clock in the morning to work here and the moment you arrive it’s busy – that’s a tough, tough day. It’s right that we reward them,’ says Barry ­Brewster, 55, who is in charge of all Wetherspoon airport pubs.

He tells me they have to tweak the names of some cocktails: ‘We don’t call them shots, or bombs. Because of the potential of ­someone using the word ‘bomb’ in the airport.’

I also discover, when I order my own breakfast, the metal knives have a stubby little 6cm blade — the longest allowed by the ­Department for Transport in airports.

4pm

A handful of stag parties are enjoying themselves – though less boisterously than the pre-6am crowd. Ben Anthony, 32, is off to Bucharest. 

His friends have made him wear tight gold hot pants and pink croc shoes. Nearby Alessio Polvere, 30, is dressed up as ­Legolas from Lord Of The Rings, complete with blond wig and fake elfin ears.

His group is going to Lisbon, ­Portugal. ‘Other bars are nicer,’ says ­Cameron Anderson, a teacher and his best man. He is slurring his words slightly.

‘But you go to Stansted and you go to Spoons. That’s the rule.’

5pm

Three female friends, who met working at Ipswich Hospital, are off on their annual holiday together. This time it is Dalaman, Turkey; previously they have done the Sound of Music Tour in Austria.

They discuss how, as children, they never went abroad. Kathy Poddy, 78, would go to the beach at Felixstowe or Clacton on day trips. She had not been abroad until over the age of 40. ‘We couldn’t afford it growing up.’

Margaret Grant, 57, who went only to Pontins as a child, says: ‘I think it’s wonderful it’s now affordable for the youngsters to go abroad.’

7pm

Tables fill up with diners, though quite a few are eating Pret sandwiches and Itsu noodles, from rival establishments, while nursing a Wetherspoon pint. This includes a group of seven, off to La Rochelle for a friend’s 25th birthday party. They all met at Cambridge University.

By coincidence, ten minutes later a group of six friends, mostly ­lawyers and working in finance, arrive en route to a friend’s family holiday home near Faro, Portugal. They all met at Oxford a decade ago.

They tell me they started with an M&S ‘train cocktail’ on the way to Stansted. Why have they come to Wetherspoon?

‘It’s a holiday rite of passage’, says Harry, who works for a hedge fund and is munching on a WH Smith chicken sandwich.

9.12pm

The staff are closing the upstairs area, which by now has just a few tables of people awaiting delayed flights, including the 9.20pm Malaga flight.

There is a group of three mothers from Maidstone, Kent, with four children between them aged 16 to two, with Hattie being the youngest.

She is being rocked in a pushchair by her slightly frazzled mother Tara Hewett, 46, trying to get her to sleep. They are now unlikely to arrive at their holiday before 3am.

‘I’m trying not to think about it too much,’ Tara says.

She’s had a glass or two of rose to dull the delay.

‘But if I didn’t have the kids with me I’d prefer to be in the ­champagne bar,’ she laughs.

9.58pm

Officially, the pub should be closing but it will stay open and serve drinks if there are late or delayed flights. There’s just a clutch of people left, some dozing on banquettes.

Upstairs, which is now closed, Kevin Clarke, is halfway through his 6pm to 3am cleaning shift, sweeping the floor.

‘It’s a big pub, it’s hard work cleaning it from top to bottom. But I’d prefer to be busy than quiet.’

It’s time for me to go. It’s only five more hours before this sleepy venue once again is rammed with holidaymakers starting their ­getaway with a pint – or three – of Corona.