Wetherspoon hits 800-site milestone
Managed pub operator JD Wetherspoon (JDW) has reached the milestone of 800 venues following the opening of its 19th pub-hotel last week.
The news came as the company revealed plans to open a further four pub-hotels this summer.
JDW spent £2.1m developing its 19th pub-hotel, the Unicorn Hotel in Ripon, North Yorkshire, which has 32 bedrooms. It will create 50 jobs.
Chairman Tim Martin said JDW has increased the long-term target for the size of its estate from 1,500 to 1,600.
He added: "The 800th opening is a wonderful milestone and we look forward to opening hundreds of new pubs. Our pubs are extremely popular and we wish to build on that by opening new outlets across the UK."
The announcement comes as Travelodge, the budget hotel operator, reveals
that JDW is among the pub groups that it plans to link up with as part of a £100m expansion programme. Travelodge has recently exchanged on a 62-bedroom hotel alongside a JDW site in Glossop, Derbyshire.
JDW spokesman Eddie Gershon said: "We will continue to open hotels alongside the company's pubs wherever appropriate.
"The hotels are very popular and give an added dimension to the company. However, the core of the company is still very much its pubs."
Other pub-hotels set to launch this summer are the White Lady in Edinburgh, on 21 June; the Swan Hotel in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, on 19 July; and the Hatchet Inn in Newbury, Berkshire, on 26 July.
Another site in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, currently unnamed, is to open on 19 July; These will increase the number of rooms in the estate by approximately 120 to 593.
Not all of the pub-hotels will match the scale of the Unicorn, however. The Newbury-based hotel will have just two bedrooms — it is being built on the site of a small cottage in the grounds of the Hatchet Inn.
