The William Dampier — Restaurant in England

Petty discrimination is alive and well in this Wetherspoons branch. I am a regular customer of excellent Wetherspoons pubs in London, Portsmouth and Bath and I think this branch in Yeovil is poorly run and by the way it treated my brother, could be seen as a discriminatory establishment. My brother and I and several friends entered on Wednesday evening (26th). Most of us bought soft drinks. The barman refused to serve my brother a canned pepsi because my brother (26, completely sober and impeccably polite) did not have ID. He then failed to ID other similarly aged members of the party when they purchased non alcoholic and alcoholic drinks later in the evening.

The Wetherspoons policies on the company website do not lend weight to the decision of this branch not to serve non alcoholic soft drinks like Pepsi to a customer without ID. Neither can I find written evidence in UK licensing legislation to support their decision. If the manager of the William Dampier can provide written grounds, based on clearly signposted policy/legislation for why his staff singled out my brother in this way, I would be most grateful.

The manager said the pub were only trying to cover themselves and alluded to policies supporting his decision which simply don't exist. He also made a weird and irrelevant statement about being consistent on this because of under-aged female customers. I could see there was no solid justification for this and he was trying to think up one on the spot. I just wanted my brother to get his soft drink and for that matter, any other paying customer to enjoy theirs regardless of their gender. I suspect he may have been covering for a poorly trained junior staff member who had made the wrong call.

I don't know why the bartender in Yeovil chose to treat a group of paying customers (we were a visibly diverse group from different parts of the UK and Ireland) in the way he did, and the defensive attitude did little to reassure.

To give the pub some credit, they acknowledged that we were nice people, acknowledged that their behaviour could seem like they were trying to be d**ks, (their choice of words, and sadly I couldn't entirely disagree) and we were allowed to finish the drinks we bought but our experience was far from...

We visited the William Dampieron Saturday 3rd September. We have never paid to get in before. There was a collection on the door saying "suggested Donation" £1. I asked them as it was a "Suggested Donation" then it was a choice. I complained to the doormen who refused to give me their name or doorsafe number. We were not allowed in unless we paid £1 which I would normally give freely to charity. I do a lot of work for charity but this was an attitude and principle I was standing up for. I complained to customer services who confirmed it was a valauntry charge but we were not allowed in because we were abusive. Given my standing in the community I can supply witnesses for the night in question and also character witnesses (who will all find it highly amusing that I can be offensive and use bad language). Probably pointless continuing to complain to Wetherspoons if you do an internet search people don't seem to get far. If this does get to any of the managers in Yeovil can you keep the CCTV from last weekend bacause we all would love to see my Abusive and bad language I used (or were the doormen covering...

Update December 14th 2023 Visited today whilst my car was being serviced. They have opened it up since my last visit and there are more tables. I had the vegetarian breakfast with Quorn sausages. Ok but will substitute with Pork next time. Wife had Eggs Benedict for a change. Plus 2 coffees each, all for about £12, good value and pleasant friendly staff.

Just had breakfast for my wife and I at the William Dampier pub/restaurant at the bottom of the Quedam shopping centre in Yeovil. They do a number of choices of traditional english breakfast or vegetarian and vegan alternatives. They were very helpful to my wife who didnt want the baked beans with hers so she had a slice of toast and butter instead. Service is very quick and the staff are friendly. Tables all had screens by them and the loos are very clean. Its a spacious place and does lunch and evening menus too. Prices are reasonable, we had 2 breakfasts and 2 mugs of tea (free refills) for under a tenner. The highlight is the flame grilled bacon,...