Get your last orders in while you can because your local Wetherspoons might be closing down for good.
JD Wetherspoons, which operated more than 950 pubs a decade ago, says it plans to shut 61 pubs down by the end of the year.
The company shuttered 41 pubs last year.
This is despite the pub chain reporting earlier this year a near-eightfold rise in pre-tax profits of £36million and a 7.7% increase in like-for-like sales.
Spoons has so far confirmed it has held or surrendered the lease on 26 pubs, from London to Liverpool.
Many more are listed as up for grabs on the estate agency Savills, though others have quietly closed their doors or changed hands.
Wetherspoons has long been known for its cut-price beer and food, with the pub chain refusing to increase the cost of its £5.75 breakfast amid the cost of living crisis.
Tim Martin, the chair of JD Wetherspoons, has said that while profits are on the up they haven’t reached what they were before the pandemic.
While dozens of Wetherspoons are shutting, Martin that the chain hopes to open new branches as inflation finally eases.
‘Consumers are cautious but are willing to spend and most people have jobs if they want one,’ Martin told The Guardian in March.
‘People are happy to go out for a pint if you keep the price competitive. It’s not like buying a sofa.’
About 71% of Wetherspoons are now freehold – meaning the company owns the land outright – compared to 41% in 2010.
Martin said the company is eyeing 130 towns and cities to open new pubs over the next 10 years.
Recently opened pubs include the Captain Flinders near Euston Station, London, and the Scribbling Mill in the White Rose Shopping Centre, Leeds. The Lion and Unicorn opened at Waterloo Station in early April.
The goal, the company said in its financial report in March, is to open 1,000 pubs.
The report said: ‘In spite of a reduction in the overall number of pubs, sales have continued to increase – total sales are now about one-third higher than in 2015, when the number of pubs peaked, and sales per pub have increased by about 50% since then.’
Until then, however, dozens of Wetherspoons have served last orders for, well, the last time this year.
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