The Palladium (JD Wetherspoon), Llandudno

Impressive building both inside and out, but somewhat let down by all of the scaffolding in the pub. However, many of the former theatre's features can still be seen. My first visit here was on a Friday evening when plenty of the town's youngsters were out in force. I arrived at the front door at the same time as a group of lads. One was told by a bouncer that he had been barred and could not come in. I tried to step around the group only to be blocked entrance by the other bouncer. Luckily, he promptly moved back out of the way when he saw that I clearly wasn't in the same age bracket as the ones who had been refused entry. Once inside, seating is on different levels. You descend to the main bar area, where most of the seating can be found. Further seating can be found near the entrance, with plenty more in another raised area at the rear. This is one of those branches of 'spoon's where orderly queues of customers (most of them ordering food and coffees) can often form. On a subsequent visit in the last week, one guy was trying to lead a rebellion against the trend, encouraging everybody to get to the bar! The usual ales were on - Greene King Abbot, Ruddles Best & Sharp's Doom Bar, alongside a couple of guests. These were Purple Moose Elderflower & Peerless Red Rocks on my first visit. Subsequent ales on Purple Moose Whakahari & Dark Side of the Moose & Coach House Post Horn. Ciders were Gwynt y Ddraig Black Dragon & Weston's Old Rosie. This place was seemingly busy at all times of the day, but there are places with better real ale choices nearby.

A splendid JDW theatre conversion, with upper circle, stalls, boxes and ornate celling still in situ. Huge inside laid-out over two distinct levels, the rear being up some steps and that is a great place in which to drink. Sadly my Butcombe Gold was taking on cider notes (NBSS 1.5) which was impressive given the ale shortages in Welsh Spoons at the time. So I didn’t hang around long. With better cellar management this could be a classic Wetherspoon – Timbo needs to kick them up the rear end.

A rather wonderful theatre conversion, retaining superb elements of the structure - an architectural gem which makes an excellent backdrop for drinking. 3 sets of pumps, albeit with a few duplicates, gave a pretty good selection of beers also.

Very impressive building which was once a theatre. Now a very busy Spoons. 5 guests on when I called including Brewhouse Chestnut Red, Wolf brewery Santa Paws, Rev James and Peerless Knee Buckler IPA. The 2 I tried were fine.

I had overheard someone in a pub in the Midlands claim that this was the best Spoons they had been to so I was looking forward to this visit. The old theatre is certainly a grand building but that was the only good thing about it. The ten hand pumps had five unused, one available soon, GK Ruddles, Marston's Help For Heroes and GK Abbot doubled up. At this point I decided to opt for the Curry Club and went for the Banks's Devil's Backbone keg IPA as the included drink. This was OK but the curry was rubbish with poppadoms slightly larger than crisps, a miniscule portion of rice and a bowl of red slop with hardly any chicken in it. The naan and Mango Chutney were OK. It was also more expensive than many Spoons at £7.75. (Food Rant over!). The standard guest ale price here was £2.49. It gets two points for the building but that's it. As a Spoons it gets a big fat zero.