The Richard Hopkins (JD Wetherspoon), Newton Abbot

This is a large open-plan branch of Wetherspoons with a good central location around 10 minutes walk from the station. The pub occupies a large, single room in an old building that apparently dates back to the 1850’s, although there’s nothing inside that is anywhere near that old. A few wood panelled pillars run from front to back through the centre of the room and there are a few padded bench booths with great dark wood panel partitioning screens, which help to break up this huge, drinking barn-style space, but aside from that, it’s only the recently added Covid screens that prevent this from being quite an impersonal, featureless pub. There’s decent carpeting through much of the room, some smart wall panels and the usual extensive mix of seating options in vast quantities, although I noticed that slot machines also seemed to be supplied in large numbers too. The bar runs along the rear wall and has a traditional wood panelled counter front and a smart bar back centred around a large mirror with the pub’s name on it. The ceiling is mostly plain, but has a few decorative cut-outs which look like they’re from an old nightclub. A couple of TV screens were showing muted rolling news and there was a good Thursday evening crowd in, helping to create a lively atmosphere. Limited pavement-side seating can be found in a patio area at the front of the pub. There were just two guest ales on, alongside the three regular ‘Spoons beers, although turned clips suggested that two other guest ales might have recently been taken off. I wandered up to the bar ready to place my order, when some bloke came up to me, ranting about how I ws queue jumping, pointing to a queue of three or four people snaking its way from the bar into the body of the pub. I pointed out that I’d not noticed this ridiculous queue and that there was plenty of bar for everyone to stand along, but he then became extremely angry, so I had to traipse over to the back of the queue before things got out of hand. Having eventually reached the bar, the disinterested barmaid poured a moderately decent pint of Fire Island Buffalo for £1.99. I was struggling to warm to this place even before the farcical bar queuing incident, so that hardly helped endear the pub to me either. It’s a big, well positioned ‘Spoons, so it’ll serve its purpose without really having to do anything else to impress. I thought this was easily the weakest of the five pubs I tried around town and I’d say you could still enjoy plenty of good beer around town without having to risk a punch-up in here.

This is a fairly typical shop conversion consisting of a single square room that seems to have a ridiculous number of fruit machines making it look more like an arcade. I did try to count them but gave up. It was also suffering somewhat from some people being worse for wear after a football match. The beer choice from the ten hand pumps rather compensated for anything else with the JDW Trio Of Doom, Otter Head & Original, Hook Norton Nerdherder IPA, Marston's One Is 90, a cider and Hunter's Full Bore. As I was having a Curry Club Vindaloo I went for the Hunter's Full Bore which according to the receipt was £3.09 (standard guest ale price here is £2.49). The Full Bore was excellent but the Vindaloo was oily and not very hot, the old and now defunct Flaming Dragon curry being miles better. Despite the food rant I thought this was a better Spoons than many visited in the SW.

Large JDW. Usual mid-period Spoons look, with three quarter length dark wood panelling and cherry red paintwork. A bit less of a barn due to some well-placed wooden dividers. Nice downlights above the bar. Toilets very high standard, even for a Spoons. Excellent selection of local ales available, our Dorset Knob was in very good shape plus beers from Hanlon and Hunters. Good barman, couldn’t stop laughing at the Dorset Knob jokes. As far as standard Spoons go, I rather liked this one.

The Richard Hopkins is a vast open plan Wetherspoons pub with a long bar on the back wall that has the usual draught suspects and ten hand pumps that were drawing a mix of guest and standard spoon’s ales. The usual cheap food and drink is available and the décor is what one would expect.