The Square Bottle (JD Wetherspoon), Chester

Typical smaller spoons, wide at the front and narrower to the right with a mostly longitudinal counter. Two banks of six with some interesting beers on the first set and the usual suspects on the set further back with three of the good ones doubled up. Mix of high and low seating with a sprinkling of booths to the right. Decorated with the old style local history display boards and old photos of Chester.

I have warmed to this place a little. it has a traditional feeling inside with wood panneling, booths, mirrors etc, very much an old style Wetherspoons though the usual canteen atmosphere prevails. The beer selection has also improved. It’s worth coming in for one if you can put up with tedious eejits prattling on about the EU.

As has been noted, this is a fairly standard old school Spoons operation. At the bar, two banks of six hand pulls with one bank dedicated to guest ales (priced at £2.49 a pint / £1.25 a half) and the other bank offering three ciders from Snails Bank in addition to the Spoons trio of Abbot Ale, Ruddles and Doom Bar. Mainly bitters and golden ales on the guest line-up but my Beartown Bruins Ruin was very nice. Fairly busy just before 11:30am today and soon started to fill up with the lunch time mob. Plenty of babies and toddlers in, including one relentless screamer. Toilets are upstairs, as is fairly standard.

To cut to the chase, this is an old skool Spoons that has had a refurb. A kind of L-shape interior with some neutral paint on the walls and a few of the old varnish pillars remaining. Absolutely rammed on our Saturday evening visit though this seems to be the default for Chester, we struggled to find a table and had to wait a few minutes. Went for a Titanic Cappuccino Stout which was fine (NBSS 3). Ate here and to be fair to the staff they kept on top of everything and the Wetherchef pinged us our grub within 20 minutes. Overall, a fair Spoons.