A pint at 9am. Pubs fight back from lockdown

Having the first drink of the day at 9am carries a certain social stigma. Unless you’re in an airport. Or it is Christmas Day. Or if the nation has just emerged, blinking and giddy with excitement, from its second lockdown of the year.

I am at the JD Wetherspoon’s on Holloway Road, a cavernous, somewhat glorious pub I’ve loved for years. It is made for social distancing.

The Coronet was originally the Savoy Cinema, opening in 1940, becoming the Coronet in 1979 and screening its last film four years later. It still looks like an old dance hall. The ghost of Fred Astaire is on the walls.  

Not everyone likes ‘Spoons pubs, but I think they are great. The beer is varied, the food filling and the prices cheap. So it attracts folk on a budget, which lately includes nearly all of us.

Not everyone likes founder and chairman Tim Martin either. Opinions are roughly split between those who think he is a gobby Brexiteer yob and those who think he should be PM.

I ask chairman Martin if it is ok to have a drink. He texts me: “Standard journalists start work early, so a 9am sharpener is more than justified. Since pubs have been shut down twice already this year, they might not be open by lunch anyway.”

I order a pint of Guinness and a ‘Spoons breakfast, but surely Guinness counts as a substantial meal in its own right.

Pubs are more than places to get a drink. Used as intended, they make us feel better, give us a sense of optimism even in dark times.

They are also part of the fabric of British society. Pub companies don’t tend to base themselves in offshore locations to evade tax.

JDW alone contributes £750 million in tax each year and has 43,000 staff. Today the staff are chipper. They are glad to be back, doing what they do best, which includes taking very little nonsense from customers including me.