The Kettleby Cross (JD Wetherspoon), Melton Mowbray

Sadly, this Wetherspoon's appears to be the best pub in the town of Melton Mowbray, with most decent pubs having closed their doors. It was my first stop of what should have been 8 pubs in the town, but half were shut down. I followed instructions and waited at the entrance for somebody to show me to a table. Another guy had just beaten me to it and was shown to a table. The manager than walked off and completely ignored me. After a couple of minutes of waiting, I entered of my own accord, ordered a drink and found my own table. It was the usual case of wondering what on earth the multitude of staff in a Wetherspoon's were actually doing. Unusually, the regular ales here are slightly different to other 'spoon's. There's no Ruddles Best here. Instead they have Greene King IPA & Abbot & Sharp's Doom Bar. The 2 guests were Shepherd Neame Spitfire & Grainstore GB Best. Ciders were Weston's Old Rosie & Thatcher's Stan's Big Apple. Unsurprisingly, given the lack of other options in the town, it was quite busy on my Bank Holiday Monday evening visit.

Wetherspoon deserve credit for building an eco friendly pub but to me this one was just a fairly standard modern Spoons. It's a roughly square room with the bar on the left and a raised area to the right. It could be any Spoons in any town. It was busy on an early Saturday afternoon. The bar has ten hand pumps which had the JDW Trio Of Doom with the GK beers doubled, Ringwood Fortyniner, Milestone Prancer the Dancer, Nottingham EPA, Banks's Barley Brown Tumble Off and Oakham Bishops Farewell. I went for the Oakham beer (£2.45) which was in good nick. It's not a bad place but nothing really out of the ordinary.