TMr Martin owes an apology to right-wing TV channel GB News after its presenter, MP Lee Anderson, suggested earlier this year that shoplifters don’t steal food to eat, but to sell it in Wetherspoon to make money.
“Sales have been booming, as you can imagine,” said the pub chain’s founder and chairman.
Mr Weatherspoon complained and Anderson’s fellow presenter, former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, read an apology on air on his colleague’s behalf.
A few days later, Martin paid a surprise visit to the Moon Under Water in Watford, one of the chain’s 801 outlets. “A bloke came up to me and said, ‘Do you want a steak?'” Martin recalls, eliciting a hearty laugh that makes his 6ft 6in frame shake when something tickles. “I haven’t spoken to GB News about this.”
Sitting in the Wetherspoons closest to the chain’s headquarters, the 69-year-old Martin seems right at home doing what he does best. Amid the buzz of business on a Wednesday afternoon, Martin is a celebrity – his physique and lion-like white hair make him stand out – and there’s also the fact that he’s probably Britain’s most famous landowner.
Drinkers he knows by name stop to haggle over the price of real ale, shake hands and take selfies.
But outside the fiefdom, Martin has been portrayed as a more controversial figure: During the pandemic, he has come under fire for what was seen as a callous attitude towards employees.
While some companies have promised staff their full salary for a period of time, Martin warned that government-funded furlough payments may take time to be paid out. Several media outlets have mistakenly reported that Martin dismissively told anxious staff they should work for Tesco. In fact, Martin said that anyone who responded to a Tesco job ad could apply and would have priority for their old job when the pubs reopened.
Weatherspoon has had to obtain several corrections from the media, but the stain remains. Martin, sometimes portrayed as a hard-headed, tough guy with little concern for what others think, is a surprisingly thoughtful man.
“I’m hurt by that,” he said. “For a short time, I was hated on based on false information. And that’s heavy, you know what I mean? Every few weeks someone gets hated, and that’s not necessarily fair. The danger is that it makes people hesitant to say what they think.”
There seems little danger of Martin holding back on the slow, difficult-to-describe rhetoric that attests to a nomadic childhood that began in Norwich and was spent mainly splitting his time between New Zealand and Northern Ireland.
He is famously, and to some, notorious for being vocal about his opinions. One of his most controversial claims was that there was little point in imposing restrictions on pubs during the Covid-19 pandemic. He has stuck to this, citing scientists and governments that support his position, but acknowledges that it might have been wiser to keep quiet.
“There were some ridiculous attempts to disrupt the debate,” he said, “but this is an emotive issue because people died and there was a lot of trauma during and after the incident. To poke your head over the parapet… From a personal point of view, it might have been better not to say anything at all.”
Martin, who was knighted in the New Year Honours on the recommendation of the Conservative government for services to hospitality and culture, insists he is not political: “I grew up mostly in Northern Ireland and I found that when people get political they can become irrational.”
He said even his wife doesn’t know how he voted in the election.
“When you run a business, individual issues will come up and I’ve dealt with them from time to time,” he said, pointing to his past criticism of Margaret Thatcher’s beer restrictions and Tony Blair’s liquor licensing policies.
Where Trump is drawing the most public ire is his fervent support for Brexit, which seems to be eliciting genuine dislike, particularly on social media.
Haters of the ubiquitous pub chain known as Spoons are happy to call for a boycott in a bid to get a piece of Martin’s pocket.
Their efforts have been futile. The chain sells food and beer for less than nearly all of its competitors. In June, it launched a breakfast menu that allows Londoners to get fried eggs, bacon, Lincolnshire sausage, baked beans and hash browns for £2.99. As of a few months ago, the chain’s cheapest pint was a Carling for £2.49, according to an analysis by data platform Stocklytics. The company said seven of its pubs offer pints of Worthington’s for 99 pence.
After all, this is the kind of thing people really like.
Revenues have risen every year non-pandemic, reaching £1.9 billion in 2023, double the figure in 2011. Pre-tax profits have jumped from £4.6 million to £36 million in the first six months of fiscal 2024. The group has also expanded into accommodation and now owns more than 50 hotels.
So why get involved in politics when it could annoy customers? Many businesses had been vocal about Brexit, he says. “The difference is I was in favour. [of it].”
But Martin supports immigration from the EU – without it his pubs would struggle to find staff – and his stance on Brexit is based on his concern that handing some policy over to the EU would dilute democracy.
He argues that Brexit won’t be the catastrophe Remainers make it out to be, citing factors like low unemployment and economic growth rates on par with EU member states. As with his views on COVID-19, he tends to cite statistics and experts that support his conclusions and exclude those that don’t. But even he can’t pretend that everything’s been going well in Britain these days.
“How well has this country been run by the people we elected? Not very well. But democracy is in chaos.”
Martin said he respected politicians who were “so badly maligned” and that he was now used to it.
But the barman learned to deal with the challenges that came his way: his father worked for the Guinness breweries, which meant the family moved frequently, and his parents divorced. Martin lives with his father, and told the BBC: Desert Island Disc He didn’t get along very well with his mother.
He studied law at Nottingham University with the hopes of becoming a barrister, but was paralysed by a fear of public speaking: “The first time I went to a contract law lecture the professor started asking questions and I never went again. I was so nervous. It may sound pathetic, but we all have these little phobias.”
Eventually the solution was to enter the pub trade, opening Martin’s Free House in 1979. The name JD Wetherspoon was later a play on the name of a character in the film JD Hogg. The Dukes of Hazzardand Weatherspoon, the name of a teacher who didn’t think very highly of him.
At the time, to open a pub you had to get permission from a judge. “With aversion therapy, to open a pub I had to get on the witness stand and give evidence in court. Once I’d done that, it was easier than public speaking. It healed me.”
But Martin doesn’t seem entirely free of anxiety about being put on the spot: When you ask him a question, he usually quotes others rather than giving his own opinion.
Over the course of an hour, he answered questions, quoting such great names as Muhammad Ali, hotelier Bill Marriott and Captain Beefheart. Why? [Walmart founder] Sam Walton said you don’t need to have a small ego to work at Walmart, but it’s a good idea to pretend you do.
“I always say, ‘I don’t know anything.’ If someone asks me if there should be three sausages or two. [in a breakfast]”I know what I don’t know. It doesn’t matter what I think.”
But his ideas matter: Martin is a brilliant strategist and realised early on that he would struggle to persuade the big pub chains to sell their sites, opting instead to convert them into retail outlets.
He now oversees perhaps Britain’s best-known pub chain, which employs around 40,000 people and has a stock market value of almost £1 billion.
He divides his time between his business and his family: Martin has four children and 12 grandchildren, one of whom he regularly helps with physiotherapy to cope with a physical disability.
He visits several pubs every week, usually unannounced, but is adamant that he “never complains to anyone” if he finds one he doesn’t like.
But he acknowledges his mistakes – some of them costly. In 2007, the Bank of Scotland offered to fix interest rates on Wetherspoon’s £50 million debt at 5.5%. Martin liked the offer so much that he underwrote all of the company’s £400 million borrowings. A year later, the bank offered him £10 million to exit, but Martin turned it down. Then the global financial crisis hit and interest rates plummeted to 0.5%.
“It was a £120m mistake,” he said. “If only I had snuck off to the cinema, as Warren Buffett said, things would have been much better.”
He also admitted he was wrong about the Wetherspoon app, which allows customers to order food from anywhere for their own table or someone else’s: “I thought an essential part of going to the pub was going to the bar and having a chat.”
The revelation that the app has given rise to “spoonspigs,” men who get satisfaction from paying for women’s drinks and meals, has generated yet another laugh. […] That seems like a, um, expensive way to go…”
Mr Martini himself is not strapped for cash, especially after selling a £10m stake in the company last month, but the sale does not seem to be a sign he is considering a succession plan.
He said none of his four children have any interest in business and he has no plans to “build a dynasty.”
“I’d like to keep working for 30 or 40 years, as long as I can have a few beers in the evening, spend a lot of time at home and travel the country. You need energy and health, and that’s not something that comes easily.”
resume
Year 69
family He is married and has four children.
education Westlake School (Auckland), Campbell College (Belfast), University of Nottingham and Inns of Court Law School.
pay £324,000
Last Holiday Cornwall.
Favorite Pint Abbott Ale.
The best advice he received “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans” (John Lennon).
Biggest regret He retired from rugby at the age of 21.
A phrase he often uses “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”
