Ritz (JD Wetherspoon), Lincoln

As the name suggests an ex-cinema, notable for the remaining deco architecture. It looks a bit small for a cinema even with the bar curving round to the right hand side and a lower section at the front right. Fun is to be had trying to work out where the stalls and circle were. Usual ‘spoons decor and style, it’s six plus six pulls, the terrible trio on both sets and a reasonable selection and quality on the remainder, topped and tailed by the usual tap stuff. Unusually the toilets are on the ground floor.

The Ritz is a Wetherspoons converted building that was a theatre and a cinema during its heyday, which has long past. To be honest I was expecting some extravagant pub with a vast expanse of seating like some of the other JDW theatre conversions, but only the foyer and the stalls have been converted here. Tables run along the windowed frontage and booths back onto the raised rear area that houses open plan seating and the long bar counter that runs across the rear wall. The original brown panelling is found around the pub and some signed photos of past performers are framed on the walls. The bar counter supports standard and premium keg and there are two banks of six hand pumps. These were drawing the usual Ruddles, Doom Bar and Abbot Ale alongside Beermats Brewing’s Summat Blonde, Rudgate’s Ruby, Frome Brewing’s Funky Monkey and Bateman’s XXXB. The service was polite, but I was expecting a little more from this pub.