Wimpy

There’s something less than savoury about Wimpy. If you described a McDonald’s to your chain-​smoking grandmother then asked her to recreate it, the chances are the resulting business would be Wimpy. How much do you reckon this was how it started?
I agree there can be something charming and quaint about the place, such as the way all the prices are in pence, but then you readjust your filter and realise 569p is actually quite steep for grubby grub. God knows what this must have seemed like back in 1951 when business was last booming. I’m sure you could have bought a car for that price.

Well, well, well, what have we here? A Wimpy in Liverpool city centre?
I’m shocked! I thought that all Wimpy’s had been relegated to motorway services post the American fast food revolution. Poor British burger bar tucked away next to the job centre; it’s a little grim and stuck in the 70s, like a scratched old record in the age of the i-​pod nano.
The fact that they still serve ‘fast-​food’ on proper 70s style brown and orange plates doesn’t fill me with hope but bless them for trying. If I wanted a sit down meal with a knife and fork I’d go to Shiraz on the other side of the square and get the same thing but better for less money.
I do feel bad for them, but the only time I’ll be dining a la Wimpy will be when I’m on the M20 and so starving that I’ll pay over £6 for a take-​out quality burger and chips.

Yup they still exist. Once seen only as McDonalds poorer cousin for your poorer cousin, Wimpy is now more the crazy old man, with belt made of rope of the fast food high street.
This branch has been in Williamson Sq forever and yet I have totally forgotten it was here. Despite efforts of the surrounding area to tidy itself up and become a modern piazza — obviously centred around a giant LFC shop — Wimpy is fading with a wimper like a British seaside resort.
As the other reviewers have undoubtedly pointed out, Wimpy’s biggest selling point — and has been even since I was a kid — is that it’s food is served on a real plate. I mean imagine a real plate! I know things are bad and that we’re always being told by Jamie Oliver how children are eating straight out of dustbins but that’s the point of fast food, its quick disposable and everything we want from our throw-​away consumer culture. Eating with cutlery? I want s**t food served fast, not a history lesson.

Wimpy has been around for ages and fully deserves to continue at the success rate it is at. It is not as poor as it sounds. Even though it seems aged, it is still a popular restaurant for all ages. The branch in Williamson Square is fairly small and has simple look about it but its food is always up to standard.
Well, I hadn’t been to Wimpy for a decade would you believe?! Now today I broke that long phase and ordered a number 7 — the classic double burger meal (with still bottled water) and went large for an extra £1 including onion rings. Altogether it cost me £6.49 for a plate full of chips, mouthful of burger and those deep fried onion rings which were delicious. I like anything deep fried so this was my sort of food!
The service was excellent and my meal was served within minutes. I have no complaints at all and I cleared every crumb on my plate, which tells you a lot. Okay I was hungry but more importantly I was very pleased with the food. Wimpy is not to be underestimated.

Poor old Wimpy, despite being younger by fourteen years than everybody’s best friend with the golden arches the very British burger bar is dying a death. It may have seemed like sense at the time but the American model won out and people realise what they want from fast food — Nobody wants to eat a burger and chips on a real plate with a knife and fork; nobody really fancy’s having a twirly Cumberland sausage in a bun and nobody really fancies paying almost six quid to do either of those things.
This branch is smart enough and well kept enough. The staff are very cheery and a little bit older than your college student server at the more widespread chains. Your food arrives at a more stately pace than at McDonalds or Burger King and it does feel nice to ask for ‘chicken in a bun’ rather than a ‘zinger tower’ but it’s not enough. What’s sad is that the food just isn’t particularly good and you can get much better for much cheaper.
It’s nice to see a British original soldiering on but how long can it really hold off; embattled on all sides by Subways, Greggs, McDonalds and KFCs it’ll take more than a can do attitude and blitz spirit to last through the second decade of the 21^st century.