The Jack Fairman - JD Wetherspoon — Restaurant in Reigate and Banstead

I understand that this is a Wetherspoon pub—it’s cheap, and expectations shouldn’t be too high. However, this particular location has left me disappointed, not because of the food, drinks, or prices (which are all perfectly fine), but because of the poor service, lack of teamwork, and overall inefficiency of the staff.

Some staff members provide decent customer service, but others seem to lack even the basics. Even those who have worked here for years appear to need further training. It’s clear that there is no proper management in place to ensure that all employees are on the same page. The pub is absolutely packed on a Friday night, yet I noticed a staff member—blue hair, for reference—sitting down, openly eating a pancake at 11:30 pm while customers were waiting for drinks and food. Surely, there should be a staff room or at least a more discreet area for breaks? Even if there isn’t, it feels incredibly unprofessional to see staff eating in front of customers, especially during one of the busiest times of the night. If people are standing around waiting to be served, the last thing they want to see is a staff member sitting down eating instead of helping their team.

Beyond that, the lack of teamwork among the staff is shocking. There’s no sense of coordination, urgency, or effort to keep things running smoothly. Dirty glasses were piling up around the bar, tables were left a mess, and staff seemed to be working in their own little bubbles rather than helping each other out. There was no one proactively clearing glasses, wiping tables, or ensuring the space remained clean and presentable. Instead, half the bar was covered in empty glasses while customers were still being served. Surely, if one person is free, they could be helping clear tables or taking glasses back instead of just standing around? It shouldn’t take much for staff to communicate and assist each other, yet it felt like nobody was even trying.

The issue here isn’t just a lack of staffing—it’s a lack of proper training and teamwork. Staff need extra training not just on how to serve drinks but also on how to support each other in keeping the place clean and running efficiently. This isn’t the first Wetherspoon I’ve visited—I’ve been to over 20 different ones, including locations in London that were twice the price and ten times busier, yet they managed to operate more smoothly with only five staff members visible. The difference? Those staff worked as a team, helped each other out, and kept the pub running efficiently.

There are a few positives—the free water (like every other pub), the security staff, and the quality of the food—but everything else seriously needs improvement. The management here needs to step up and either hire more people or properly train the ones they have to work as a team, clean as they go, and be more efficient overall. When you have a packed pub on a Friday night, you can’t afford to have staff slacking off, ignoring basic cleanliness, or failing to communicate with one another.

I like coming here for a drink and to work on my laptop, but the lack of organisation, teamwork, and general cleanliness makes it hard to enjoy. This place has potential, but without better management and staff training, it’s falling...

Been a couple of times and it was alright, but me and my pregnant wife have been today just to have a easy and simple lunch but unfortunately this was not the case. We went and there were tables filled with people which were fine and tables that were opened but they were way to high for my pregnant wife to climb and that’s not ok. There were loads of empty tables filled with dirty dishes and all the staff we saw weren’t doing anything at all. We saw one gentleman just collecting menus and taking them to the bar and just standing at the bar watching all the tables be dirty while me and my pregnant wife was standing there and looking for a table. Unfortunately this was the WORST service I’ve ever seen in my life and it was DISGUSTING and very pathetic!!! I Highly would never recommend this Wetherspoon at all! And the other women just stood there and served alcohol and once they were done they also stood there. We left and went to Crawley Wetherspoons, they were very clean and l understanding and had the greatest service ever and we’ve been there too many times and we would always go there. So highly recommend everyone to go to the Crawley branch. At the Horley Wetherspoon no one should ever have this service and feel this way ESPECIALLY IF SOMEONE IS PREGNANT!!!! Honestly just feel like nowadays everyone is just trying to not do anything and just earn a free paycheck for everything now. We will never ever come here again. But unfortunately with me used to be in management they won’t do anything. I think something else needs to be done higher up the chain. Also we sat outside and all the tables had no numbers and were squeaky and yet again no one came...

A pretty typical Wetherspoons pub. It's very big and can be quite busy and noisy toward the weekend - that said, we've always managed to find a seat. Good points are; reasonably priced drinks, good range of ales and ciders, friendly staff, very decent burgers at very reasonable prices (have never tried other food, so can't comment). Big and clean ladies toilets. Bad points are; it can take a long time to get served even when numerous staff are behind the counter. A long bar counter, combined with young, inexperienced or untrained staff, who seem unable to look around and work out who's next to be served, so that a bunch of burly blokes arrived after I did and being louder and more aggressive in manner, meant the young staff felt intimidated into serving them next, despite my protestations that I, and others, had been waiting longer. I can't say they were aggressive punters in general, just in making sure they bunked the queue. Staff need to be trained to deal with this sort of thing, it's a very basic requirement and a bad one to get wrong. Only one other bad point, but it's also an important one, tables are not cleared/cleaned in between customers, there do not appear to be any staff allocated to this job, so when you do manage to find a seat, it is almost always at a very dirty table, with used glasses and spilled drinks. When alerted, the bar staff handed me blue kitchen roll to clean it with - Mr Tim Martin, if you're reading this, that is not my job. I'm a paying customer not an unpaid busser. You need to get the basics right, and you do, but only...