From Mexican Monday to Sunday Club, a journey.
Matthew Tucker / Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed
There are currently 920 J.D. Wetherspoon locations. And as of August, there were only 55,000 non-Wetherspoon's pubs still remaining in Britain, with a rate of 31 pubs closing each week.
On the outside, a Wetherspoon's could be camouflaged as an old bank, a classic movie theatre, or a 19th-century police station. On the inside, though, they all have the same carpeting, the same ramshackle furniture scheme, some kind of fruit machine, and, of course, the same menu.
As an American living in London, I'm completely fascinated by this. We have things like Chili's, Applebee's, and T.G.I. Friday's, but they broadcast their promise of casual dining to the world with big bright neon signs. Wetherspoon's just seems content to silently engulf all of Britain like the Borg from Star Trek. Sure they look authentic from the outside, but the inside of a Spoon's is all part of an interconnected industrial gastropub hivemind.
So I decided to spend a week tasting the menu of Britain's brave new world of Wetherspoon's domination. Here's what I learned...
Matthew Tucker / BuzzFeed
So this is a real thing. The author George Orwell wrote an essay, titled "The Moon Under Water", in 1946 in which he described the perfect pub. Wetherspoon's has 14 locations named after that essay.
Which is kind of weird! But whatever. I ordered a burrito and a pint: £6.99. Unlike Chipotle, guacamole was not extra, and it came with tortilla chips. So, Wetherspoon's: 1, Chipotle: 0. After my first lunch and a pint, I felt pretty good. I felt optimistic.
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