The Quarter Jack (JD Wetherspoon), Wells

Slightly out of town on a fairly well-heeled street is this modern-fit Spoons (2014 opener). Nicely done inside, with a good attempt at making some discrete areas at the front of the pub, along with Prisoner-style concrete ovals in the garden. Plate glass along the side helps the light flood in which means it’s an upbeat ambience compared to some of the more dim and gloomy JDW outlets. Swift service. Three guest ales and my Hop Union Bristol Belle was excellent (NBSS 4). A very good Spoons, I’d be a loyal regular if I lived in the town on this showing – has clearly improved since the previous reviewer’s unfortunate visit. 7.5

There are good JDWs and bad ones – this falls into the latter category. The staff were unwelcoming, unhelpful and inefficient, meaning it took almost half an hour from entering to the first taste of beer. We were informed that it is normal to pay for your beer then wait while they serve a large party with food before bringing you your sole purchase, a pint of ale, while the person whom you paid goes off shift leaving the service for someone else to deliver. Also delivered was a lecture on how they queue the orders on a screen which was not visible from where we sat. There were 6 ales advertised on 2 banks of pump clips, but only two actually available – Ruddles Best and Abbot – both in poor condition. This one did not run like clockwork and did not chime well.

This is a mid-sized Wetherspoons pub on the edge of town, located in a former furniture and antiques store. Entering via a small front patio garden area with some basic garden furniture facing a moderately busy road, you find yourself in a wide seating area across the front section of the pub. This area has a mix of carpeting and extremely scuffed floorboards, with a odd layout over to the right, where bare brick walls broken up by partitioning create a series of partly hidden spaces that offer a bit more privacy than you’d expect in your average ‘Spoons. By way of contrast, the left-hand side is much more open, with plusher furnishings, wood panelled walls and a glazed screen partitioned side room. Standard table and chair seating fills most of the front section of the pub and there are a few nice arty bits on the walls along with the usual ‘Spoons local history boards, although even these have been presented more smartly than in the majority of their other pubs. The room narrows a little as you approach the bar area, which sees the servery run along the right-hand wall with high tables and stools through the centre of the room and bench booths down the left side. The bar has a modern counter and bar back, both of which have been quite brightly lit, making it a strong focal point for the room. Some more standard seating options are available towards the rear, as the pub kind of peters out somewhat in this fairly nondescript space. Doors to the left lead out to the beer garden that has some really cool looking seating built into some upturned giant rings. There was a decent Friday night crowd in when we visited, but we were able to find a table without too much fuss and found the staff extremely helpful and attentive, in sharp contrast to several other Wetherspoons visited post-lockdown. The ‘Spoons app listed a limited ale range comprising three ‘Spoons regulars and just the one guest ale. I found it impossible to look past the Theakstons Old Peculiar at a mere £1.69 a pint and found myself sinking a couple of these over the course of our visit. We’d also decided to have some food here as well and the dishes were the usual cheap and cheerful fayre. This place really impressed with its excellent service and smart interior, both of which put it well ahead of the average Wetherspoons. It’s a shame that they fell down somewhat with the ale range, which I’m presuming was reduced to reflect the smaller customer turnout in the post-lockdown world, although I enjoyed my Old Peculiar very much. Overall, I really enjoyed this visit and thought this was one of the better pubs from my few days in Wells.

The Quarter Jack is just over three years old now. It consists of a T shaped room with the wide part at the front and the main area where the bar is on the right being long and narrow and the paed patio with the sedtions of tunelling as shelters on the left. I noticed the food clubs here were a bit expensive but the other food prices looked about average. It was doing a reasonable trade on my Thursday afternoon visit The bar has two sets of five hand pumps which had three available soon, the JDW Trio Of Doom doubled up leaving a solitary Everard's Ascalon as the only ale option worth bothering with and it's a beer that was supposed to commemorate St George's Day the previous Sunday! I went for a cider instead, Sam's Cheddar Valley (£2.40) which was a proper orange cloudy Somerset cider that resembled a pint of tomato soup without the red food colouring. This seemed like it could be a decent Spoons but the solitary viable ale option makes it a joke for me and a complete waste of time. I certainly wouldn't return.

Official site of The Quarter Jack (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com

Official site of The Quarter Jack (JD Wetherspoon) - www.jdwetherspoon.com