The Wallace Hartley - JD Wetherspoon — Restaurant in Borough of Pendle

As with most Wetherspoons, 'The Wallace Hartley' serves a decent selection of soft and alcoholic drinks. As a real ale drinker, I like the fact that all Wetherspoons support real ales and usually have a wide selection of guest ales that come and go, and vary between their pubs. Prices are excellent and reasonable, as their usual reputation. Food is perfectly decent most of the time, and for what you pay, I have little complaints. The toilets in 'The Wallace Hartley' are upstairs, and once again, as per the usual standard of Wetherspoons, are clean, modern, and functional. All tops marks on these features. If you're local like me, then you'll probably know that the pub is named after a local man who was the band master on the ill-fated Titanic, and he went down with the ship, reputedly playing till the bitter end to help keep spirits up and alive despite many peoples (including his own) impending doom on that fateful voyage. There was some controversy surrounding his name being attached to a public house, since Wallace Hartley was a staunch non-drinker ('tea-totaller') of alcohol. Anyway, I think the idea was to pay respect to his name. The reason for 3* is because unfortunately some of the service here is poor. I waited at the bar, and the middle aged lady with the glasses and blonde (dyed) hair had zero customer service skills. No hello, or "What can I get for you", she looked at me with contempt and I felt awkward and uncomfortable. As a customer, I felt I was the one making all the effort and politeness. After ordering and having my ale poured, she didn't even say the amount. Quite literally there was no effort on her part to be polite or accomodating. So a big marks down here. I don't expect to be fawned over, quite the opposite. But basic communication, eye contact, and customer service is a given in my book, and she...

As a regular I am more than a little biased.

The Staff are always polite and well presented, apart from the Manager, Liam, who has a weird penchant for Hawaiian shirts! They kindly pretend to laugh at my gags.

Despite the high food turnover the rooms and tables are generally cleaned almost as soon as diners have vacated - except when a family's assorted little darlings have left their table(s) and carpet looking like an explosion in a chip factory...er..fryery!! Speaking of the little monsters. Some are wonderfully behaved, but others just seem to run around screaming after din-dins whilst the (usually) mothers natter about this and that, or are absorbed with their mobiles and the latest fiscal happenings on the international markets Ahem!

Beers are pretty well top-notch* with regular and guest ales, and newbie staff are usually well supervised. I have been there, however, when some poor soul has been left alone with increasingly frustrated punters queueing up. Speaking of whom, most customers are friendly and chatty. Of course, there are the usual raucous and foul-mouthed jerks seen in most pubs. Fortunately, incidents involving these k*heads seem to have lessened in the last couple of years

The only, continually, annoying aspect are the GENTS toilets. This is nothing to do with the staff, who clean the area regularly, but various fools who seem to delight in wrecking the doors and seats, putting coins (I assume) down the urinals to block them, and (just before Covid-19) ripping a hand-drier off the wall !!

Waiting for the reopening. As per the song: I wanna go where ev'rybody knows my name.....'GRUMPY'

Oh yeah * Frankly, I think Abbots is one of the worst beers ever brewed. It tastes like the type of face-distorting, tongue-blecching yucchy medicine I was given as...

Fabulous layout and nice decor, variety of seating areas and beer garden (extensive smoking area) to rear.

Used for business and pleasure for well over a year now and always happy with the experience. When there have been issues staff or management have resolved them swiftly and satisfactorily.

For the real ale drinkers they have an ever changing selection. The range of gins, rums, ciders is pretty fabulous as well as the non alcoholic offerings. During the day until 2pm ish you can have a limitless refill cup of filter coffee for about £1. Awesome!

Food for a chain pub is pretty impressive. Good deals on through out the week and some pretty good 'healthier versions'.

Enjoyed a veggie breakfast/Curry/Chicken watsitmacallit many a time.

Worth a go day or night.

Decent wifi and a few sockets as well if you want to work away from home for a bit. Just ask first before trailing wires everywhere is my suggestion.

Only negative - number of people smoking at front door and walking through that revolting cloud. Not much staff can...