“There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see,” tweeted Jordan Peterson in 2023, a coinage that may well outlast his organised intellectual thought. Because there are cathedrals everywhere — and some sell pints of Greene King IPA for £1.49. Wetherspoons, the 800-strong British pub chain, has recruited followers far outside its core demographic of retired men who want lager before noon. With anti-inflation prices as sticky as its carpets, and a tendency to set up shop in — and thereby preserve — beautiful historic buildings, it is regularly hailed as a paragon of homegrown business excellence.

Being a good British patriot, Wetherspoons founder Tim Martin has now launched an offensive against the Spanish. The chain has opened its first branch outside the UK and Ireland: the Castell de Santa Bàrbera, in Alicante’s airport. This isn’t exactly alien terrain. Given the airport’s proximity to British expat communities in Spanish cities such as Benidorm, and the Spoons’ precise position within the terminal near where the non-Schengen flights depart, its clientele will likely remain resolutely British. Don’t expect the paella to outsell the cooked breakfasts.

This is only the beginning of Martin’s plans for international expansion, and not just in places where Brits sip shandy in the sun. “Given the population overseas, there is huge opportunity,” he told the Daily Mirror. “Coffee shops have been fantastically successful in, for example, China. Could this be true of the UK pub?” It could well be — China holds British aesthetics in such esteem that parts of Huawei’s massive campus in Guangdong province are modelled on Oxford. Chinese people also love beer and pork. The business case writes itself.

In mainland Europe and America, too, the cultural winds are blowing in favour of a Spoonsaissance. In decades past, the overseas view of Britain has tended towards what you’d find in a Harrods airport concession: Big Ben, the Royal Family, Sherlock Holmes, Downton Abbey, etc. Marks and Spencer and Burberry are among the brands which have established substantial retail footholds on foreign shores.

But the geezer-y, demotic side of Britain’s national culture is now on a globetrotting seduction expedition. Since 2022, TikTok has been going mad for “blokecore”, a melange of football shirts and Adidas trainers. The international success of Love Island has spread excellent words such as “ick” and “grafting” far and wide, and a study last year found that American members of Generation Z were driving an uptick in British slang across the Atlantic. The Oasis tour was attended by nearly three million people across the world, sending local pockets of Anglophiles into states of ecstasy. British rappers, including Central Cee and Skepta, are almost as prominent as their American counterparts. The UK’s baseline reputation now aligns closer to cheap alcoholic drinks than upmarket sandwiches or designer scarves.

That’s all good news for Spoons. But though the chain could more than adequately sate a demand from worldwide punters for a cheeky British lad experience, its strength derives from how it fuses that archetype with the things people used to love about Britain: old buildings, quiet old men, rural cosiness. The very institution of the pub is so resonant because it can channel both our rowdy and reserved sides. The precision-tooled, pint-dispensing machine that is Wetherspoons is best placed to take advantage of this. First Alicante, then the world.

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Josiah Gogarty is a writer at British GQ.

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