The Plaza (JD Wetherspoon), Rugeley

The Plaza is an old cinema conversion. The interior is quite impressive and despite current Covid restrictions, you can still walk through it en route to the large garden at the rear. On entering, we were told that the Wetherspoon's app was not working and that it could be a wait of up to 1 hour or more for service. The guy at the entrance had assumed wrongly that we were after food, so with an order placed on the supposedly broken app, we were actually served very quickly. Greene King Abbot & Ruddles Best were on as usual. The guest beer was Slater's 1 Hop. On the way out, I did also notice Gwynt y Ddraig Black Dragon cider. That hadn't been available to purchase on the app, as far as I could tell. The rear garden is spacious and there were still plenty of tables available, despite this being the first Saturday afternoon of pub opening this year. The most popular tables were those in the late afternoon sunshine. Those in the shade were a little chilly. The best pub Rugeley had to offer on this visit.

The name says it all, it's a cinema conversion and there seems to be a lot of these in the Midlands area. Like many of these places you enter through the original foyer and it then opens out to a large high ceilinged room with the bar on the right and the stalls above. The rear wall of the building seems to have been replaced with windows that lead out to a patio and garden that I didn't look into. I got here around 11:00 on a Tuesday morning to find it fairly quiet apart from a few older locals at the bar and a couple of families probably in for breakfast. The bar has two sets of six hand pumps which had the GK beers doubled up, one Available Soon and 7 of the festival ales from a week or so ago. The lower ABV ones of these were being sold off at £1.85 a pint but I went for the Dark Star Revelation (£2.45) which was in good nick but not perfect. Overall I thought this was an above average Spoons.

The Plaza is an ex cinema which is now a Wetherspoons pub. Once inside there is a large oblong shaped room with the bar on the right side,the rear left is down a few steps,the seating is the usual Spoons type with mainly normal tables and chairs plus a few tall ones. There was a decent choice of real ales on the bar,we had a drink of Salopian Oracle which was a decent drink but far too hoppy for my liking,the other beers noted were Lymestone Ein Stein,Slaters Western and the usuall Spoons beers Ruddles and Abbot. We had a good laugh at the bar when my brother said there is a crap Slaters beer on,the next moment a bloke came to the bar with a part drunk pint of Slaters Western which he said was crap and asked for another drink. I thought this was quite a pleasant Spoons. Pub visited 7/3/2015

A fine description from Mr Dragon below. I'd only add that without the World Cup the place can feel over large being a converted cinema but then this is the case with so many Spoons houses. Atmosphere on our visit was supplied by the usual Spoons customers who've taken too much advantage of the low prices throughout the day. Service was friendly and helpful and, again as with many Spoons, there was a wide range of beer available including the usual Abbott and Ruddles Best as well as more interesting local brews such as Staffie from Blythe, Oracle from Salopian and Chiller from Beowulf. The pick of these was the Staffie on our visit but I suspect that this may have been random as the others we tried didn't seem especially crisp and, again as with many Spoons, beer quality can be varied at best. On balance, I'd rather pay a bit extra for a consistently high quality pint but this seems to be a difficult option to find in Rugeley so if I'm ever in the area again I suspect the Plaza will be seeing more of my custom.

A Spoons set up in a former 1930s looking undressed brick built cinema. With beer patios at the front and rear. The usual thing for Spoons in that it is set up for food, apart from the comfy seat library bit and a comfy area by the main entrance. There are a plethora of TVs but for once, not silent, as the world cup was on! Indeed, there was a big pull down screen as well. The decor is mainly blue and white, with some wood panel, green and purples thrown in. The usual historic information was on the walls, which seemed to include Melbourne, Wilberforce and others, as well as a few cinematic themed prints on the walls in the old auditorium part. The shape of the pub sees a narrower entrance (old cinema sweet shop and ticket booth ghosts can be felt here) before it widens out into a three story audiotum sections, with a balcony and sunken level. Service was fine and the clientele the usual busy mixed crowd. Beer; tap stuff with the usual Ruddles and Abbots, along with Rinwood 49er, Blythe's Ridware Pale Ale and a decent enough Ossett's Silver King. There were othe Blythe Beers and Beowolf beers either on or coming on, which was nice to see, as local breweries. A better experience than i expected. The refurb is decent, the beer i had, decent and once passed the bar, i could breathe. I didnt take an age to be served either. I would go back, clearly i am going soft in my old age!