The Booking Office (JD Wetherspoon), Edinburgh

This former North British Railway Company office and latterly Jimmy Cheung's Chinese Buffet and now opened as a Cask Marque Accredited Wetherspoons in June 2016. Just inside the entrance the floor features a large mosaic of the North British Railway Company. This Wetherspoons features This pub serves 3 regular beers from Caledonian Deuchars IPA, Greene King Abbot & Stewart Edinburgh Gold. I visited during the Edinburgh Fringe festival; the place was so busy I was unable to search out further ales. There is outside seating at both sides of the building. In defence of Wetherspoons, the 2019 CAMRA Good Beer Guide, the UK’s best-selling beer and pub guide and ultimate list of pubs serving tip-top real ale, includes no fewer than 243 Wetherspoon pubs, consistently more than any other pub company. Of those, 83 pubs have been listed in the guide for the last five consecutive years.

Guest ales here are £3.10 a pint, which is not particularly cheap by 'spoons standards. But I suppose it's all location, location being on top (literally) of Edinburgh Waverley railway station. The interior is fairly light as there is a glass roof roughly above the bar counter, and there's also a small outside drinking area at the front, which was highly popular on a warm and sunny day. It was very busy in the general area on the Friday afternoon I visited, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that the Edinburgh Festival was due to kick off the following day. It's another day, another 'spoons. This one was at least as good as most I've been in.

Originally the booking office for the train station which then became the parcels office then a bar and then a chinese restaurant. Wetherspoons spent around £1.9 million transforming the site. Quite a plain interior with a replica North British Railway Company mosaic at the entrance. Handy for the train station it has live train departure screens and is across the road from the airport bus terminus.