please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
The busier of the two Wetherspoons in Leamington. There can be a fairly long wait to get drinks here on a Saturday, but its a spacious pub, very long and big open plan room. In general a fairly typical spoons. I quite like it here.
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The Benjamin Satchwell is located on Leamington's showcase street (The Parade). It has a really narrow frontage and I thought I was entering the country's smallest Wetherspoons. But appearances can be deceptive. This place stretches back all the way to the next street and has a long bar. Ales were Warwickshire Beer Co. Kingmaker, Sharps Doom Bar, Ruddles Best, Greene King Abbot, Davenports Imperial, Banks's Alpha 5 & Backyard Lionheart. Cider was Rosie's Pig. The interior is typical 'spoons. So are some of the characters that can be found here. Nevertheless I was left a little disappointed with Leamington's pub offering and this was one of the better pubs in the town.
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Average kind of Wetherspoons. At least it had a few ales on unlike the other place. Ales were okay.
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Not much to say that the fact it is a I'd wetherspoons place. Service poor, ale poor, good selection of bottles beers severed in a very hot glass with a crack in it. Staff lack direction and motivation. I could go on but for sake of boring you I will stop but needless to say leamington has plenty of better place to go!
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I have to second the last remark. On a bad day this is probably the worst example of Wetherspoons you will find anywhere in the country - the poor service is legendary. Nearly as bad as the Square Peg in Brum but with an ever so slightly better class of customer.
Wetherspoons - where would we be without em??
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Popped in one lunchtime whilst on holiday. Big mistake.
Waited patiently for over 5 minutes to get served. Eventually, I was forced to say something to the dozy, ear-ring freak of a barman who was standing right in front of me. No queuing system whatsoever. Free-for-all.
I told him that he was a useless tw*t and left. He said "come back soon". Went to a nearby pub and got served immediately. No surprise there. Dreadful service at this pub. One of the worst Wetherspoons that I've visited.
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It's a Wetherspoons so you can't really complain when it fills up with some of the 'less fortunate' of society, nor when it gets rammed with bladdered students at the weekend. It's like McDonalds - you know exactly what you're going to get whichever branch you visit!
However, in this pub, the beers are fine and there are two areas (front and back) which are away from the bar and therefore relatively pain free!
anonymous - 9 Apr 2010 16:33 |
Friendly pub, food served every day. Good value on their clubs and competitive prices. (Did curry with a drink for a fiver last Thursday!)
Large selection of ales available with a few locals, and they do offer a nice ale fest. every once in a while as well as wine fest. Not to be missed if you are out with a budget as they offer great deals, hence the student' tides on week ends. (Try the jug cocktails!)
However, a bit dark inside and could do with some general refurb, but otherwise far more enjoyable experience than what some comments make of it.
Warks - 30 Nov 2009 22:54 |
Appeals to me as a weekday evening drinker due to having 6 fruit machines and 1 itbox, large selection of cheap beers and wines, as someone said before the toilets are disgusting beyond belief, it has one of those charts inside the main toilet entrance to say its been cleaned every hour, you know, the ones the staff just stick their head round and tick without even entering the bogs.
Food is fine for the price you pay but dont get overly excited but if you want a basic beer with basic food on a basic budget and without too much hassle then this place does fine.
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Reasonable pints of Abbot this weekend and when its only �1.79 and 50p off for CAMRA vouchers you can't complain. Very reasonable priced spirits and the splash of lemeonade etc. are free... unlike The Copper Pot up the road. Gets very busy and noisy at weekends but all under control - all the kids are ID'd!
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The God-awful pits of a place. The bar staff are some of the worst I've ever come across, with the exception of 1 really pleasant girl who won't last cos she's probably gonna go back to Uni. It's a typical spoons with sticky floors, rank food and dodgy punters. Avoid at all costs!
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This is one of the worst spoons I have been in. The toilets were minging with a pair of wet discarded Y fronts on the floor of the gents. Just a general feeling of lack of control and rowdiness.
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A slightly better Spoons than many, but gets absolutely packed due to the lack of anything else interesting nearby. I found the quality of beer just slightly better than my closest in the chain. Otherwise pretty standard.
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Nice pub but the staff are a complete joke.
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If only we had a nice W'spoons pub in Leamington, this one is pants, the staff are useless and the ales are rarely on form...
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Good range of ales but just doesn't make up for the hopeless staff, poor quality food and nasty sticky tables!
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Yes, it's a fairly typical 'spoons pub, but slightly above average. There were several guest beers on tap and all were acceptable. The food was the usual fare, but it was served quickly and by friendly staff.
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A typical wetherspoons pub. Try a trip out of the centre the a plenty of very nice backstreet locals.
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had a cracking breakie here one tues morning while waiting for me bus to rugby...quite spacey...beer was goood an all...lot of lasses drinking coffee and atmosphere was very relaxed.
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Visited on a busy Friday night (4th April) and ordered food at 10pm and were served very quickly. The food was cheep and chearful but very nice & well presented. The beers were plentyful and the 3 I tried spot on for quality. The Duechers Chocolate Drop especially deserves a mention. One of the better JDW's I've been to, and where else serves food till 11pm
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Awful town pub,its the usual wetherspoons were the beer is not looked after,i presume the lines arent cleaned regularly,the food is cheap but mediocre and due to the cheap prices you will find every knob in town to ruin your day,if you fancy a fag you have to smoke on the pavement out
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The worst wetherspoons pub I have ever been in. Had a pint of one of the regular beers it came our cloudy. I asked to change the barman asked for a supervisor who told me the was nothing wrong with the beer! I ended up with guiness which was OK! My food came. The veg was brown and the meal was cold. Got my money back but was made to feel a trouble maker! Ended up in the 'Jug and Jester'. Which is a little futher down the road by the parish church. A nice refurbished pub with good beer and nice food which was nice and hot.
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Benjamin Satchwell was the man responsible for turning Leamington from a small village to the elegant spa town it is today although the pub that bears his name is sadly little more than an extended bog standard Wetherspoons with all the pros and cons that go with it. The interior is long and narrow and covers what presumably would have originally been 4 premises (2 to the front and 2 to the rear). The front still bears the remains of the original 2 frontages. The bar area has a range of sofas off to one side and, the pub being on a hill, is a couple of feet higher than the main drinking area. Part of the original retaining walls are still in place to the front with the rest being opened up with a lower division along the original wall line. Down in the sunken lower side, the layout is fairly formal pub seating with mirrors and bookcases making it all look very traditional even if it is all very much Wetherspoons by numbers. Despite the large amount of floor space, the low ceiling makes it a bit claustrophobic and this isn�t helped by there being little natural light in the bowels of the pub. To the rear, stretching back to the street behind is a family area and dotted about are there is the usual array of local history displays, silent fruit machines and plasma screens (albeit with subtitles). Wheelchair users and skateboarders will be impressed by the large ramp to negotiate the split levels although I would not recommend the latter giving it a go. Basically, the B.S. fulfills all the functions that you would expect to get from a Wetherspoons without installing the desire to return in a hurry.
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Food was so awful I felt sick - lettuce was brown and soggy, steak looked like dogfood. Yes ok, I should have known not to buy food at a Wetherspoon's but it was too tempting. Good selection of cheapish drinks, but I would rather go somewhere with an atmosphere and staff who cared.
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I notice most of the others keep on about it being cheap but it's the most expensive spoons I have been in<very bad access at the front,very busy
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Excellent pub if you like cheap beer and cheap food, 5 yes 5 fruit machines but very very smoky so cant wait for it to go NS.
If you want to do it on the cheap the pub is great but always short on bar staff
8/10
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Not an amazing pub, but not as bad as some of these reviews seem to make out. It can get far too busy at times and yes it's full of students (although the later isn't a bad thing from my point of view) but it is cheap and somewhere you can go if you actually want to be able to hold an audible conversation.
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I hate this pub. Can only assume that people go cos it's cheap and it doesn't half show. The food is crap, the service is worse and it's full of chavs. Oh, and memo to JD Wetherspoons- pubs shaped like corridors are a rubbish idea. Avoid unless you can't afford to drink anywhere else (although the park probably has a better atmosphere)
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on crowded weekends offering large mobs of drunken teenage girls and ludicrously cheap deals on strange coloured spirits(if that's your thing)
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very dingy, very smokey, staff are either slow or there just isn't enough of them
prices good as ever, need to go ns asap
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It isnt too bad, the lack of music is alright, it allows for conversations with your mates, although beware of some dodgy customers....
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Food is dodgy at best but what do you expect for these prices but the beer just about makes up for it just. The Spitfire is usually the best kept beer on offer, avoid the cheaper real ales though (yuck).
Prior to 8pm this pub is fine. i.e It not too full of students getting completly smashed on cheap beer.
However avoid it after 8pm unless your a student or in need of a cheap pint.
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A long, thin Wetherspoons (it's two shops knocked together), and not the most awe inspiring place in town. Typical Wetherspoons - ie there's better elsewhere
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I've been drinking there for about 4 years and it seems to have 2 totally different personalities. During the day its a quiet place for a cheap drink in the middle of town. At weekends and evenings it gets packed and the bar is four people deep queing for drinks.
As for the lack of music, well I think its a welcome change from the vast majority or bars and pubs that blast out generic rubish.
james - 27 Oct 2004 17:04 |
Didnt realy like "Satchwells" seems to have no atmosphere at all and i have walked out oif there loads of times being ignored when trying to get served
Stewart - 20 Oct 2004 15:00 |
Low prices, poor quality beer, no atmosphere, unattractive.
Dr - 20 Oct 2004 13:27 |
cheap!!!! love it
toby - 6 Oct 2004 12:09 |
A brilliant place to meet up for a drink and then move on, theres not really any atmosphere so u don`t wanna stay in there long, it needs music!
Cheap drinks but if u get served ure damn lucky!
The bar staff are very unaware of who has been waitin five mins and who has just pushed in, I`ve kicked off before and also just walked away, try The Lounge 50yds down the rd, much better place
anonymous - 31 May 2004 14:42 |
Busy Wetherspoons pub which depsite the volume of customers fails to generate much atmosphere. Good range of drinks across the board- bar service fairly slow with food not much better. Overall a decent enough place to use as a meeting point, first port of call if you like.
Gerrard - 26 Apr 2004 21:48 |
Maybe unfair, but I dislike the 'stack 'em' high' ethos of JD's.
I didnt like the Leamington house of B.Satchwells. It was full of lads drinking Carling, who had little or no awareness of other people at the bar.
Drinks are cheap, but the reason is obvious. A wide range of cask ales, but no suprisingly, none of them were in good condition, and it seemed that none of the bar staff seemed to know how to pour a decent pint of cask ale.
Not one for those that like a nice pint.
Jamie - 4 Mar 2004 17:18 |
Good start for the night as many drinks promotions but beware that the female species can be that of an illegal age, "honestly your honour she said she was 18" !!!
David - 29 Dec 2003 22:39 |
Like all the Wetherspoons pubs I have visited the quality, range and price of beer is good. Sadly the building - converted from 2 long thin shops - has produced a pub with no attractive spaces and, although it is busy, little atmosphere.
tim - 22 Dec 2003 18:25 |
Very Cheap, but busy most nights and staff not always on the ball. glasses can also look a bit dirty. Can get excruciatingly hot inside during the summer.
B2 - 27 Sep 2003 23:14 |
Best Mixed grill in the world !! If you love meat & lots of it - try it - you will not be disappointed - guaranteed !!
colin - 19 Aug 2003 10:48 |
Very cheap, nice inside but due to these factors queues can be very long!
Boozy Bob - 4 Dec 2002 09:45 |
