Stafford : The Picture House

I had a spare hour in Stafford for the second time in a few weeks, the first time I went to the Good Beer Guide listed Titanic pub and this time I went to the town’s JD Wetherspoon pub. As it’s suitably comprehensive, I will use the extensive JD Wetherspoon history of the former cinema in which this pub is now sited.

“Built for the local independent exhibitor Goodalls Pictures, the Picture House opened on 23 February 1914, showing The House of Temperley. Blending in with the historic town, the façade has a centrally located gable decorated in Tudor-style half-timber beams in black and white. There is a decorative wrought-iron canopy, which has stained-glass letters spelling out the name Picture House to the front of the building. The original ticket office remained in use throughout its life and is still there today. There was another ticket office down the side of the building, which served customers in the front stalls seating, and this remained in use until the last few years of the cinema’s operation.

Inside the auditorium, seating was arranged on a stadium plan, with a raised stepped section at the rear. There is a barrel-vaulted ceiling, which has decorative bands of plaster. In August 1917, a French-built Reed Organ de Luxe Mustel ‘Celesta’ concert organ was installed and opened by Birmingham organist Mr CW Perkins. The Picture House was equipped for ‘talkies’, and the first to be shown here was The Last of Mrs Cheyney, starring Norma Shearer on 19 April 1930. In July 1930, the Everston family purchased the Picture House, and they operated it for the remainder of its cinematic life.

The town of Stafford only had one circuit-owned cinema, the Odeon, and the Picture House usually played the ABC release or had a choice of independent releases. It had a new proscenium opening installed in June 1955, when Cinemascope was fitted. Otherwise, the building retained it character through the years. In 1989, the Picture House was designated a Grade II listed building by English Heritage.

The Picture House was closed on 30 March 1955 after a three-week run of Disclosure, starring Michael Douglas. There were 78 attending the final performance. The building was purchased by JD Wetherspoon and, after planning permission was approved, was then converted into The Picture House public house, which opened 6 March 1997.”

JD Wetherspoon have a reputation for their sensitive and careful renovations and refurbishments to building and this one is no different. They’ve maintained the old ticket desk at the front of the venue and there were plenty of cinema posters dotted around the place.

The real ale selection.

I think that looks quite impressive. Note the white screen above the bar, as they still sometimes show films at the pub.

Some old seats, which I assume are from here.

The projector.

Every JD Wetherspoon pub has its own carpet, this seems like one of the better ones to me.

I went for the Ossian from Inveralmond Brewery, well kept and light with a little bit of a toffee flavour to it. And a bargain at £1 for a half pint.

I’ve got this riveting and really rather very dull theory that you can get a measure of how well managed a JD Wetherspoon venue is from its Google review score. Decent ones seem to be scoring around 4.1 to 4.3, whereas poorer ones are between 3.7 to 3.9. Big data and all that….. This one is at 4.2, so all seems good.

“First ever time I went to the picture house and last time I will go to the picture house. Ordered drinks beer cappuccino and hot chocolate ,pizza and some fry up for my son and some things that looked like chicken and coleslaw.food came before drinks then one mug was cracked and dirty coffee machine was defective tried 3 times to get a cappuccino and the taste was vile think they did not clean it right I spoke to a female about it and she said no milk in the machine and in general did not care as clearly did nothing no sorry no we can give you something else or a refund on the two drinks.the chips were well over cooked as well as the chicken strips that must of been bought from Iceland or Tesco’s the coleslaw tasted and looked vile and I mean vile and I love coleslaw.my sons steak or cat looked rubber and he just had trouble cutting it.”

Vile I tell you, vile…

“Breakfast was cold, bacon was cooked to the inch of its life, looked like the grill needed a good clean black bits merged with the burnt edges. Vile.”

Another vile.

“Really vile Rude manager half our age. Told off for playing with our autistic daughter (whilst sat down at a table) and she accidentally broke a glass. He then stormed over told us not to mess around, proceeded to wipe the drink off the table onto my lap and told us to move whilst making snide remarks. We ended up Leaving instead of ordering a meal. We are regulars but we won’t be back again. He needs some customer service training!”

And another. This must be a very on-trend word in Stafford.

“the app glitched as i was ordering a curry and it made me pay for two curry’s, as soon as i realised about 30 seconds after i had paid, i went straight down to the waitress and she said she couldn’t give me a refund as it’s my fault and she was quite rude, even though the app glitched so it wasn’t my fault. she also said the food has already been made so the food clearly isn’t fresh if it had already been made after a minute. the curry was also cold. i also emailed the wetherspoons asking again for a refund but they also said the same thing even though this wasn’t my fault. i would not recommend going here”

I think I’d be annoyed too, but then I’d just eat the second curry.

“Had done my shopping before stopping off for lunch, had one of the employees rudely tell me I couldn’t eat my own food in the pub. Not sure where he got the idea I was preparing to whip out my loaf of bread and 2lt bottle of milk. Do people regularly bring their own food when they go to the wetherspoons? Your food can’t be that bad.”

I would love to know the back story. Anyway, I’m digressing once again….

In summary to the whole arrangement, I rather enjoyed this visit, the venue is impressive, the beer selection was decent and the quality of the ale was high. Then I has to rush back for my train, which was promptly delayed.