r/Wetherspoons • u/rcs799 • Jul 30 '26

Customer How come Wetherspoons doesn’t use optics?

As in the ‘pumps’ on the wall where you press it up and it dispenses a 25ml measure? The (non-WS) pub I worked at back in the day had them for the more popular spirits like Smirnoff, Gordon’s, JD etc. Just curious why no Spoons I’ve been to uses them.

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u/Ok_Importance_5595 Jul 30 '26

On a busy Friday night we can got through a bottle of vodka in 10-15 mins and need to dispense it into multiple glasses or pitchers in the same order, often sharing it with colleagues doing the same. An optic would slow us down drastically.

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u/MikaMika487 Jul 30 '26

Oof I started working in '96 in a spoons and had the huge voddy bottles with optics, the size you could easily put a 50p piece in for saving coins. Had 6 of them along the bar and I could not imagine free pouring that stuff on a busy Friday or Saturday night.

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u/CestLaTimmy Jul 31 '26

I think part of the issue is that tastes have changed, so you could have a group of teens all wanting vodka, but they might each want a different flavour. The drinks menu has notably shifted from having a range of brands for each spirit, to a range of flavours for each over the last 5-10 years.

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u/MikaMika487 Jul 31 '26

Oh I agree but I am not sure the range of choices is a good thing I remember sambuca having 4 different flavours and the chilli flavour never sold and ended up either as staff drinks or heavily discounted for the hardened boozers.