Wetherspoons is shutting the Coronet on Holloway Rd on 10th December, a former cinema opened in 1996. Its been a good while since I’ve been in but it is an impressive edifice and no doubt in times like these expensive to run.
Wetherspoons started out in North London in the late 1970s- with Marlers bar in Muswell Hill. Tim Martin lived in Wood Green and for a time more and more Spoons opened in Haringey and adjacent areas. Obviously before long he worked out that the business model would work elsewhere.
Wetherspoons has been retreating from North London for a while. I won’t go into the history of that here but this year the Tollgate in Turnpike Lane and the Angel at Islington have closed. Both are open as pubs again and the Coronet will reportedly also re-open as a pub. The Spoons model will be absent though.
Wetherspoons view is that they close pubs where there are other Spoons nearby. In this case the White Swan at Highbury Corner is a short-ish bus ride. This is London remember so buses are plentiful at all times.
Of course many avoid Spoons and I rarely go in myself these days. There are better though certainly not cheaper places. Most cask at the White Swan costs £3.22 a pint. Further there are several Spoons pubs in NE London in the 2024 Good Beer Guide- the Mossy Well in Muswell Hill and the Rochester Castle in Stoke Newington.
The reality is that if you like a drinkable pint in a social atmosphere and you don’t have much spare cash- there is a cost of living crisis- Wetherspoons aren’t bad places to be. Despite what the media think there are a lot of not very well off people in North London-someone has to do the work- and the retreat of Spoons from the area is not great news, amongst a lot of not great news.
Rochester Castle is a great pub or it was when I went there a lot some years ago. Problem with Spoons is the beer may be cheapish but quality is often poor.