Wetherspoon (J.D) Share Price (JDW)

@milnrowmug. Yes a staffing issue in part but JDW management must be aware of this practise being widespread. I wouldn't know how to raise this to director level but it needs to be done if this is, or has the potential to become more than a minor loss on the bottom line.

My old gran used to say, "take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves". Take note JDW.

Weather is warming up a little outside seating picking up here in our 3 local Spoons,

Sterr & accip, this abuse could be cured if staff cleared tables sooner. You often go in to find used glasses, half-eaten plates of food (why do they order so much, smaller dishes available?) and, yes, beverage mugs that could be re-used fraudulently. Some of this is idle staff, more is bad management; but for profit reasons the staffing can be very thin, as the margins are thin. It's a fine line, what makes more profit, stopping beverage fiddles or a lean wage bill?

However, customers who might leave a chunk of cash behind would be attracted by clear clean tables and rapid bar service. A recent experience was of 3 bodies behind the bar only 1 of which served live customers, the others doing online orders stocktaking and clerical functions. Trade was light but it only took a complex food order to cause a big delay. Only customers with possession of their order are actually making us profit, until then they just use space for no return.

Sterr, a token system would require staff time. I think the reason for refills at all is that serve-yourself is cheaper than employing to serve.

That's disgusting! It's a form of shoplifting. You could maybe overlook a case of a kid on a zero hours contract picking up an empty cup from a table and bumming a coffee, as long as it's only one and he's not sitting there all day, but this disabled man will have his Disability Living Allowance (DLA), his Personal Independence Payment (PIP), his Attendance Allowance (AA), probably his rent and rates paying, one cost of living payment after another, in other words can afford his first cup of JDW coffee, before he hits the free ones following. The manager should have got the laws in and had the man and the carer's bags turned out, and they might have found bottles of sauce, vinegar, handfuls of sugar, teabags, all the stuff that JDW's have lying about. It's not cheap brand stuff, either. Only the best.

Don't get me on about not being able to get a table for ameal at dinnertime in a fairly small JDW, because of all the tables being hogged by tea and coffee bandits.

I saw the manager in an east London Spoons bar a customer for repeatedly nicking the coffee - it was quite the sight as the offender was in a wheelchair and with a carer. Everyone seemed impressed with how the manager handled the situation - tricky one that!

I get about a bit, and think the problem is pretty widespread, so I wouldn't like to stigmatise an entire county or region. Some Wetherspoons are so big and have so many odd corners they are impossible to supervise. And as for the type of customer, one could always mention the expensive cars and SUV's parked around the street corners from PDSA clinics and food banks.

What do you pay for a cup of coffee now in a cafe or coffee shop? In the local JDW now closed, it was £1.04 and as many mugs as you wanted till it was comng out of your ears. My answer is token tea and coffee machines, one token, or two if you've bought a meal.