If you’ve spent any time in the U.K., you’ve probably had a drink or a bite to eat at a Wetherspoons location. A 2017 Express article referred to the company as a “much-loved chain of low-cost pubs,” ranging from sprawling emporiums to more modest haunts to sit and have a drink. (Full disclosure: I ate haggis at a Wetherspoons in Edinburgh a few years ago.) But what exactly would it take to pay a visit to literally every Wetherspoons currently open, and have a beer at most of them?
If you’re David Bingham, the answer? Four years or so.
As the BBC reports, Bingham recently completed a feat few others have achieved: visiting 876 Wetherspoons locations. According to the article, he’d begun visiting all of the locations near his Derbyshire home, from there, he branched out after his partner bought him a directory listing all of the chain’s locations.
In an interview with BBC, Bingham noted that he did a fair amount of travel as a supporter of League One club Burton Albion F.C. (aptly nicknamed “the Brewers”), which made it easier for him to make it to more and more locations. “[E]very time I get to somewhere new I search out the Wetherspoons,” he told the BBC.
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As a James Beard Award winner and head of bars for NoMad hotels, his recommendations are to be followedSome of the 876 locations that Bingham visited over the years have since closed. He did put in a bit of extra effort to make it to the last of these, booking an inexpensive flight for the sole purpose of accessing the Wetherspoons at London Gatwick Airport.
Most people who have spent a great deal of time in bars have stories to tell. One can only imagine how many Bingham has at this point.
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