The Kings Tun (JD Wetherspoon), Kingston Town, Kingston Upon Thames

This is a large Wetherspoon's split into two seating areas with a further bar upstairs (with a lift going up). Although I don't really like the pub I have been lucky to get a decent real ale on most of my visits.

This is a Lloyds No 1 that was in former lives a supermarket, cinema and music hall. It's a huge barn of a place with an upstairs bar that I didn't investigate. There is a garish and unwelcoming bank of 5 fruit machines dominating the centre of the room which gives the feel of a casino rather than a pub. There were 12 pumps, two having Abbot and IPA (no Ruddles) and very disappointingly four uninvited guests, Jennings Cocker Hoop, Brakspear Bitter, London Pride and Doombar. The six proper guests or Locale beers were Jaipur IPA, Loddon Bamboozle and Hullabaloo, Wadworth / Chelsea Sunset Red, Tillingbourne AONB and Twickenham Vanguard. I went for the Jaipur IPA which was cloudy and in poor condition. Given this place is GBG listed I found the beer selection and quality wholly disappointing.

This is a large pub even by Wetherspoon’s standards. Everything you expect in a ‘spoons is here – cheap food, cheap drink, standard furnishings (although this one has more than its fair share of tall tables and tall stools), and all day drinkers. It’s the traditional ‘spoons drinking barn; this one is housed in a former cinema and in fact still has some of the original floor tiling at the front. There are also far too many one-armed bandits scattered around the place as well. It’s a standard ‘spoons. Most people either love or hate them, but personally I can either take them or leave them, and this one is handily placed near Kingston train station.

A huge Wetherspoons in what was originally the Empire cinema although I remember it from the days that I lived in the area as the Reject Shop (remember them?). There isn't much inside to remind you of its former guises and it is for the most part a typically branded ‘Spoons albeit covering a large area over 2 floors. The downstairs main bar is essentially the old cinema foyer and fairly open with the usual run of screened off snugs down a couple of sides. One interesting addition to the silent fruit machines and multiple plasma screens is an electronic table top poker game. The main bar has 12 hand pumps however as it is currently Ale Festival time, I cannot for certain say how many guest beers they normally offer but on top of the 7 Festival Beers on Monday, they also had 3 additional guest beers so I am assuming that the selection is better than average even outside of the Festival dates. An open staircase winds its way to the even more spacious upper floor which has its own self contained bar albeit with just the 3 hand pumps. Due to sheer size of the place, I would assume that grabbing a table is pretty easy even at the busiest of times however some of the customer base were a bit charmless to put it politely. The same cannot be said of the staff who were pleasant, efficient and were never without a smile. They were also patient and tactful when I witnessed them having to deal with some particularly demanding characters. The old pictures of town are of personal interest since I can relate to the days when Kingston wasn't just a seemingly series of chain shops, refurbished bars and mass market consumerism. I no longer know the town centre well enough to determine where the Kings Tun fits in with the competition but for Ales, it would certainly be a front runner even if the pub itself lacks any great intrinsic charm.