Thursday 17 February 2011

Wetherspoon & the Palace Coup

The news that J D Wetherspoon has confirmed their interest in opening a Pub in Conwy must surely strike dread into every existing Conwy Pub Landlord's heart.

A vast Wetherspoons emporium of cheap food and drink can only prove to be the final straw for many of Conwy's already struggling pubs. With the Albion and Mailcoach already closed, how many of the others can survive? Conwy is only a small town and the trade is already spread pretty thinly, especially in the Winter months. What effect, too, will it have on Conwy's cafes and restaurants, as cheap food is a staple of every Wetherspoons?

The word is that Wetherspoon are interested in purchasing the Palace Bingo building and converting that into a pub. This would make perfect sense for them - all of Conwy's existing pubs are way too small for a Wetherspoon style operation - talk of them purchasing the Albion is just fanciful.

Major investment by a business is usually always very welcome but I fear in this case that the competition will be too much for Conwy's independent pubs.

1 comments:

R.R.Jones said...

There's nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition.
If the existing pubs and cafés are worried about losing their clientèle then they should be asking themselves why? Why are they scared of a chain of pubs with a good record on controlling drunkenness, who sell good cheap food and fine LOCAL ales; is it because they cannot live up to the same standards?
The fact is that Conwy is expensive, as are all tourist orientated locations. Go to a café or pub in summer and you can pay way over the mark for food and drink, whereas Wetherspoons keep the same prices all year round.
I don't live in Conwy, so it won't effect me but I reckon the pub goers of the town will be happy to see that their locals are going to have to raise the bar a bit to keep up.
Long live the free market, say I!

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