JD Wetherspoon to open £2.5m London Waterloo pub

JD Wetherspoon is to open a pub at London Waterloo station following a £2.5m investment.

The new pub, which is set to create 120 full- and part-time jobs, will be named the Lion and Unicorn and is set to launch this summer.

It will occupy part of the upper ground floor of the Sidings, a redevelopment of the former Eurostar Terminal, which opened in 2022. The site, made up of 40 glass-fronted units, is also home to Black Sheep Coffee, Nando’s and the largest BrewDog bar in the world.

Floor to ceiling windows around the pub will offer views of the station concourse.

Wetherspoon said the Lion and Unicorn’s name was a reference to the Festival of Britain, which was held close to the site of the pub in 1951.

It will be the second multimillion-pound Wetherspoon pub to open at a major London station this year, after the chain launched a £2.3m Captain Flinders pub near Euston in January.

Wetherspoon, which reported a surge in sales in its half-year results, trades from just over 800 UK sites.

It previously said there was scope to expand to around 1,000 Wetherspoon pubs and expand its existing locations by adding gardens or moving into adjacent buildings.

Wetherspoon chairman and founder Tim Martin, who was knighted in the New Year’s Honours list, said: “We are looking forward to opening our new pub. We are confident it will appeal to a wide range of people and be a great asset to the station itself.”

LCR’s asset management director Sian Evans added: “The Sidings at Waterloo is set to become one of London’s leading leisure and entertainment destinations. The new Wetherspoon pub will provide another great reason for people to visit.”

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