On a rainy and windy Friday afternoon, Marlow's new Wetherspoon pub The Grand Assembly cuts an impressive figure at the top of the High Street.

The discount boozer arrived in the town earlier this week to much fanfare and doubt from naysayers over its suitability for the "posh" area – but such fears appear to have been in vain, with the old Market Square building packed to the rafters with a cross-generational crowd on a weekday lunchtime.

The pub grub dished up by Tim Martin's UK-based chain, known for its cheap and cheerful menus and quirky venues, is pretty standard across its sites but eating from one of those famous blue plates in the home of British rowing, Frankenstein and, of course, Tom Kerridge, was bound to be a unique experience.

That was my thinking when I stopped by for a fish and chips (£8.68 with a soft drink) and a poke around while escaping the bad weather on Friday – and my impression was a wholly positive one that seemed to be shared by locals and day-trippers alike, all happily chatting and tucking into their ham egg and chips, all-day breakfasts and the odd pint to ring in the early weekend.

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Manager Rachel Turner was hopeful that a £3.5 million transformation of the former M&Co shop would win over those against its arrival in Marlow, and it's hard to imagine many sticking to their guns when faced with all the local references and memorabilia crammed into the Tardis-like space – including ceramic swan wall tiles, paintings by local artists and literary-themed steps up to its rear beer garden. 

My fish and chips and sparkling water were pleasant enough – very 'what you see is what you get' – but lunch was elevated by conversation with Rosemary and Brian, two ninety-somethings sat next to me who had travelled from Taplow and Bradenham respectively to see what all the fuss was about.

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Not only did the two friends, who have met every Friday for lunch for years and sampled plenty of 'Spoons along the way, assure me that a weekly fish and chips was in fact "the key to a long life", but they also provided a helpful vantage point from which to view the demographic of the pub, which by around 2pm was full of middle-aged workmen in fluorescent jackets, schoolkids on their lunchbreaks, twenty-something friends catching up and pensioners doing the crossword over a coffee.

In a somewhat surprising turn, Tim Martin said this week that The Grand Assembly's opening was "one of the busiest days ever, if not the busiest" the chain has ever seen, beating even the central London boozer at Waterloo Station to the top spot.

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While curiosity may account for some of that footfall, which server Callum hopes will die down soon "for my own sake – the opening day was as busy as a Saturday night and it's not slowed down since", it's hard to deny that the pub might be a good fit for Marlow after all. 

And that's not just because beer prices start at £1.79 – more than half the price of some of its fancier counterparts in the town centre – but it doesn't hurt either!