Are you a Wetherspoon lover or hater? LEE BOYCE and SIMON LAMBERT have very different opinions on the pub giant…

This week, JD Wetherspoon said it expects annual profits to come in towards the ‘top end’ of forecasts. 

It’s safe to say the pub chain – led by its outspoken founder Sir Tim Martin – is a marmite type of establishment, with more than 800 sites across the country that many love to hate.

So, what side of the Spoons’ fence do you sit on? Lee Boyce and Simon Lambert may agree on many things finance related, but it’s safe to say they have differing ‘pints’ of view when it comes to the pub giant…

Lee says: When I walk into the Wetherspoons on my local, usually bustling high street (The Roebuck in Rayleigh, Essex, if you’re wondering) I know exactly what to expect: value for money, friendly staff and a non-pretentious experience.

Yes, I get why people don’t like the chain. It is, after all, the Tesco of the pub world given its size – a juggernaut of plentiful pints, natty carpets, and cheap eats.

By my rough calculations, there is one Wetherspoons for every 58,000 adults living in Britain.

Recently, I sat in the Roebuck, sipping on £1.49 cans of Lagunitas IPA on offer peppered in with a couple of pints of £2.50 Doom Bar ale, with my best mate.

We had every intention to go elsewhere, but no reason to leave. The pub was heaving with both younger customers and older ones too, creating a good atmosphere, and despite this, service was speedy.

And where else in the South East are you getting a pack of dry roasted nuts to share for 75p a pop?

Food is cheap, and granted, not a gourmet treat – shoutout to the Southern Fried chicken strips here with Jack Daniels sauce – but that’s a problem I have with many modern pubs: they’ve become restaurants that sell pints.

Let me also sing the praises of Stansted Airport Wetherspoons here. I use this airport frequently, as it’s only 40 minutes up the road – but you must battle through the snaking duty free, and the too small holding pen of travellers awaiting boarding information.

Meanwhile, most of the food establishments are too small. The beacon of light? Wetherspoons. Before a flight to Athens in March, I had a quiet, inexpensive breakfast upstairs in The Windmill, with free hot drink refills for £3.40. Perfect.

Hot drink refills in my local Wetherspoons? £1.56. You can’t argue with that when coffee shops now seemingly charge around £3.50 for a latte. These refills are cheap and appeal especially to pensioners who still want to meet friends and be social, but on a tight budget.

Indeed, Mr Martin joked yesterday: ‘Sales of Lavazza coffee are increasing with free refills thought to be responsible for spontaneous exhibitions of breakdancing among retired customers.’

I also like the lack of distractions, namely not many TV screens and no over-the-top blaring music. Some of the pub sites are also a joy, including those in old cinemas and theatres, Winter Gardens and opera houses, they can genuinely be a work of art.

And while The Roebuck doesn’t have a garden, I’m often in the Blue Boar, Billericay, which does. On a sunny afternoon, it’s a fine spot to meet friends and catch up over inexpensive pints.

I’m lucky there are plenty of good independent boozers in my town that I also visit, and I believe Wetherspoons helps keep the prices at these establishments low.

When back in Essex I can essentially get a few drinks without breaking a £10 note. Near the This is Money office in Kensington, you’re hard pressed to get a pint under £7 now. That’s painful. I feel like I’m cheating the system when in Spoons.

I even enjoy its chunky magazine, often getting lost in a myriad of stories from its pubs across the country.

I’ve sipped cocktails in many fancy, exotic bars around the world – but, for all the reasons above, even if I became a multi-millionaire, I’d never abandon the simple Spoons.

Besides, there’s no finer spot to eavesdrop on conversations from all walks of life. It’s a journalist’s dream.

Sir Tim Martin: He founded Wetherspoon in 1979 – and it’s safe to say he’s more than made his mark on the pub industry

Simon says: The last time I went into a Wetherspoons I’d been strong-armed into it by Lee Boyce, who made me leave a perfectly good pub to go there.

It was late last year, and we had gone for a sharpener with colleagues ahead of a Christmas party near Holborn.

This is a part of London with wonderful old pubs in abundance and we had ducked into the Ship Tavern, which is tucked in off a passage behind the station.

It had everything you want from a London pub: a history dating back to the 16th century, wood-panelled walls, nooks to find a spot in, decent beers, and while fairly busy it had that great December evening atmosphere.

But when the time came for a second round, a spanner was thrown in the works.

Apparently, where we were all standing was too cramped, so we should get another one in the Wetherspoons down the road.

I protested. But on the basis that my call to go into The Ship had already been heeded and it’s only fair to give others their pub shout, I conceded.

And so, we swapped the kind of cosy traditional London pub you’d recommend to a friend for the Shakespeare’s Head – a cavernous Wetherspoons drinking barn down the road.

I realise that I risk sounding like a snob here, but my extremely infrequent frequenting of JD Wetherspoon establishments is not because I look down on them or their regulars.

I believe Tim Martin’s chain and its prices are a great option for people to have and I salute him for keeping so many pubs open at a time when too many are closing.

But I also feel Britain has many great pubs for me to spend time in, while I have limited time to do that, so I need to make the most of it.

I’d also rather go spend a bit more money in a local pub and support it when I can, than get cheap beer, snacks, and burgers in a big chain.

And while you are unlikely to find me in a Wetherspoons, I wouldn’t usually choose a big High Street boozer or out-of-town joint run by the other large pub companies either.

I prefer a small pub – tenanted or freehold – with a proper landlord or landlady, where their character shines through – even if the end result can be less than perfect.

I love pubs of all kind – and in my younger days I worked in quite a few.

My favourites have always been those where you can settle in, spot the regulars, get a decent pint, have a chat with those behind the bar, and sup on the unique community feel that the great British pub offers.

I’m very lucky in this regard that my local is a Hertfordshire country pub, the Elephant & Castle, in Amwell, a 15-minute walk across fields from my house.

It’s run by a small independent local brewery called Farr Brew, so has their beers on tap, and has low ceilings, corners to find a table in, an old well in the middle of the pub, open fires in winter and a big beer garden for summer.

That’s my kind of pub.