Understaffed and Overcrowded: A Spoonion Introspection

Last semester, the University of St Andrews Student Union entered into a partnership with JD Wetherspoons due to financial difficulties. On Friday 4th September 2026, The Red Gown opened its doors to the public for the first time, taking over the space formerly occupied by Main Bar. However, the newly opened establishment is already facing complaints of long wait times and overcrowding, leaving many students feeling unsatisfied.

Credit: The Sun Glasgow

Third Year student Eva McIntyre told The Stand that “standing outside in the queue for the Union [has become] crazy.” McIntyre added that, “even though there were clear barricades, people were ripping them open to skip the lines.” McIntyre also told The Stand that she witnessed this during the Wednesday half time event, which is usually one of the quieter club nights. Inside the new Wetherspoons bar, there was no respite from the crowds.

McIntyre recounted that many people in the line seemed to have bought a wristband in order to receive entry into The Red Gown as opposed to the club night in 601. This is due to a Union policy that prohibits non-wristband wearers into The Red Gown after 11PM on club nights. 

McIntyre added that inside the Wetherspoons, “people were yelling at and berating the bartenders for not serving them in time, when they were clearly understaffed and overcrowded.” McIntyre compared her experience of trying to get a drink in The Red Gown to being “a sardine in a tin, but all the sardines are out to kill you.” McIntyre left the bar before she could get served a drink due to the long wait.

These issues have perhaps not fallen on deaf ears. In what was potentially an effort to reduce the demand on staff, the Wetherspoon’s app stops taking orders at 11:30PM. This requires patrons to order their drinks at the bar instead; a policy that does not appear to exist in many other Wetherspoons. McIntyre expressed discontent with this acknowledging that “this only shifts the crowd [of patrons] onto the bar areas. It makes it much harder to order drinks, and seems to make it harder for the bartenders to serve drinks too.”

Fourth Year student Charlie Bowker told The Stand that he was left “waiting at the Union for approximately an hour for a single pint of coke.” He added that it wasn’t just the wait times that left him disheartened, but the etiquette of other people in the queue. Bowker told The Stand that, "people pushed in front of me,” causing him to “[leave] out of anger.” 

It isn’t exclusively St Andrews students that are left disgruntled by the long wait times. William Steiner, a visiting student from The University of Glasgow noted that “[The Red Gown] felt similarly busy to the Glaswegian Wetherspoon’s night life, and the staff seemed to be affected by [the large crowds] too.” Steiner additionally acknowledged the differences between a student-run Wetherspoons and a privately-run one —"in Glasgow, they’re just public businesses as opposed to being connected to the Uni[versity]." Due to the fact that The Red Gown is a dedicated student pub, as it is Union affiliated, Steiner commented that The Red Gown “‘felt very rowdy.”

Ultimately, the partnership with Wetherspoons saved Main Bar from being shut down entirely. While issues of overcrowding have been raised, third year student James Smart told The Stand that in his view, “it’s a nice problem to have; a Union that’s too crowded. I don’t think anyone would necessarily disagree with any solutions that would stop overcrowding, but everyone wants to see their Union lively.”

The Stand contacted the Union for comment but received no response by the time of the article's publication.