The West Gate Inn - JD Wetherspoon — Restaurant in Canterbury

Rude, arrogant supervisor! We went there on a relaxed Sunday afternoon with my brother for a nice meal (as we usually did, never causing any trouble). We set down at our usual table in the back, my brother stayed at the table watching our coats while I was ordering at the bar. I ordered 2 ultimate burgers with 2 pints of lager (which is included in the meal). A tall, dark haired barman took my order, but while looking suspiciously at me. I paid and set back down with the pints. He then comes to our table and asks me to show my ID. I am well in my 30s with a beard and never been asked to show ID in this pub before, so it was a bit shocking but I had my drivers license with me so I showed him that. He nodded signalling it was ok and left our table. We had our first few sips of our lagers while waiting for our usual burgers. Suddenly, a blonde woman came over to our table saying she was the supervisor and asked my brother to show his ID, or else she would take his drink away (which he already started drinking). My brother is 26 years old and he forgot his drivers license at home, but had a clear scanned image of the license in his phone, which he showed to the woman. She wasn’t satisfied, and started to be rude and angry saying this image of the license can be photoshopped, and insisted him to go home for his license and come back (which we told her would take 50 minutes), otherwise neither of us could finish our food and drinks. I told her that even if my brother was 16, so 10 years younger (which he clearly wasn’t) by law he could still drink a pint of beer with a meal if he was with an adult. We were both very disappointed, because they knew us very well, they served us countless times before, never asking IDs. I asked her why we’d need to leave, why can’t we just eat our food. She said we can eat our food, but then we have to leave the pub regardless, we can’t even stay there for soft drinks, otherwise she’d call the police. It was beyond bizarre. She was clearly having a go at us, but we didn’t give her any reason. We were always very nice and considerate, but this really was just too much. She knew very well that we were both way over the drinking age, she knew we were not secret officers trying to fire her, we were just trying to enjoy our Sunday as usual. She knew she wasn’t going to get into any trouble for letting us finish our burgers with beers that her colleague served us with and already approved. I think she just wanted to exercise her power over us, or to make an example of us in front of her staff and other...

Terrible Customer Service at Wetherspoon in Canterbury

I recently visited the Wetherspoon in Canterbury and had one of the worst customer service experiences I've ever encountered. I arrived at the bar at 00:55, just before closing time, and ordered a drink. The barmaid was about to prepare my drink when another staff member, who seemed to be in charge of the Bosch, decided to keep her busy with other tasks. He clearly saw that I was waiting, but instead of allowing her to serve me, he deliberately distracted her until the clock struck 01:00. When he finally came over, he told me that the bar was closed and refused to serve me.

This kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. It felt like they went out of their way to avoid serving a customer who was there well before closing time. If they didn’t want to serve drinks after a certain hour, they should have just said so instead of wasting my time. I left feeling extremely frustrated and disappointed.

I won’t be returning to this Wetherspoon, and I strongly advise others to avoid it if you expect any kind of...

We popped by here one Thursday morning recently, mainly to get some coffee and hot chocolate and sample this particular branch of Wetherspoons. Our little party of 4 included two German friends who were experiencing the pub culture in England for the first time. The place was what I would regard as a typical, standard pub in town. It was relatively quiet but there were still a number of people enjoying their "elevenses" here. We partook in a number of free refills before one of the cheerful waitresses came by to offer us free beer! Yes, free beer! Apparently they had just had their beer taps checked and the beer they pulled was there to be drunk. Well, we drunk it! Suffice it to say that I had to carefully explain to my German friends that they shouldn't expect this at every hostelry we planned to visit over our 48 hour lightning trip to England. But it certainly left a very significant impression on...