The Waterhouse (JD Wetherspoon), Manchester

Multi room spoons, yes honestly although all are interconnected, opposite Mr Waterhouse’s architectural gem of Manchester Town Hall. I had problems getting served due to gormless students in the way but otherwise it was fine, this may be part of some weird queuing ritual which I noticed later. As with the other city centre spoons listed in the GBG (Paramount) the staff were on the ball. Oddly there were no price labels on the pumps but it was the £2.69 band as with the Paramount. Looks like a Georgian building outside and there’s columns and architraves and stuff inside. Anyway factual stuff; two banks of pulls, dross to left but hidden, I only spotted them due to seeing a Doombar clip, the main section has five pulls, average to good beer quality.

A bit of a different Spoons in that it is multi roomed, far better than the formulaic canteen style affairs, to be honest I only came in here because it was open before anything else and was pleased to see Oakham JHB on the bar, one of their better efforts.

one of those enormous rambling Spoons with goodness knows how many rooms. of course it's preferable to the soulless open plan outlets but still suffers from the usual average service and non-atmosphere, being full of people that come here to avoid the social aspect of pubs. beer selection infinitely better than the Seven Stars.

Visited on a Saturday in November 2017 around midday and it was absolutely rammed. Just managed to get a table as there were two of us wanting a meal. I had a Coffee Hazelnut Porter by Elland Brewery which was very pleasant, if perhaps a little on the cold side. This is an unusual layout multi room Spoons but it works quite well, though can make finding a table a bit of a challenge having to investigate all the nooks and crannies. Very good selection of real ales at the bar, though the bar being crowded made it difficult to identify all of them. Didn't notice exactly how many hand pumps there were, but there were two or three banks spread across the bar.

This is an unusual Spoons consisting of a small bar counter with other rooms around it. Sadly I was here on a late Friday afternoon so I was lucky to get to the bar and served but couldn't see how many pumps there were or what was on them. I managed to get a Phoenix Black Bee (£2.75), a new beer for me and it was in good nick. I got the feeling that this is probably the best of the central Manchester JDWs but not so good on a Friday evening. It's the only one of the five I might bother returning to but at a quieter time.