Maybe we’ve always been boring. Or stable, reliable, traditional, steadfast, stalwart or any number of euphemisms that describe a people for whom change is frowned upon. Because, as a culture, we like things just the way they are. Or do we? In the beginning, there was real ale. Then came kegs, lager and smoothflow. Next [...]

Alan Creevy, of CDLH Leisure & Hospitality Surveyors www.cdlh.co.uk recognised experts in the Hospitality property sector, looks back on 2011 with some surprising revelations on the popularity and growth of Glasgow’s buoyant restaurant sector. Alan Creevy commented, “There is no doubt that the doom and gloom merchants were out in force in 2011. Realistically, there [...]

DRAM invited some key players in the licensed trade to give us their view on 2011. Here’s what they said: What do you believe were your major accomplishments in 2011? Donald Macleod, CPL: “Managing to survive when the street our main club – The Garage is on was shut for 6 months. Heads should have [...]

Lisini Pub Company carried home the Best Community Spirit award at this year’s DRAM awards and its latest work-in-progress, Dalziel Park, near Motherwell, is being marketed at the local community – and also as a destination venue. Therefore this, the fifth outlet for the company headed up by Siobhan Edwards and Lisa Wishart, is a [...]

Coatbridge-based Manorview Hotels has given the Torrance Hotel in East Kilbride a real shot in arm with an extensive refurbishment of its restaurant and bar areas. The 160-capacity function suite is currently being given the once over, ahead of receiving the same treatment, along with all the bedrooms, over the course of the next six [...]

Alan Tomkins hasn’t quite managed to bring the Bali sunshine to Glasgow by naming his latest bar on Bath Street after his favourite holiday destination on the island. But his refurbished basement bar, Kuta, is bright, fresh and funky. The former red-heavy Tapela, with its black bull silhouettes and abstract paint work, is now an [...]

You remember the story, right? Goldilocks heads out into the woods, barges into the Three Bears’ house, sits down to their porridge and proceeds to judge each one on its temperature. I’ll bet anything that when she grew up, Goldilocks became a real ale drinker. Let’s face it, real ale is a real pain in [...]

SUSAN YOUNG PONDERS THE ISSUE THAT MINTEL RECENTLY RAISED…THE MAKRET ANAYLSTS SUGGESTED THAT UNLESS WE GOT AWAY FROM THE HEATHER AND HILLS IMAGE OF WHISKY SALES WERE GOING TO SLIP DRASTICALLY IN THE UK. Since I have writing about whisky, some 20 years, the age old issue has been ‘how to attract new drinkers without [...]

When the guys at Molson Coors suggested that I interview John and Senga Campbell who had a hotel in Cumnock, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect to see a multi-million pound boutique establishment complete with plush banqueting suite, especially when it has a very traditional name…the Dumfries Arms. John explains, “We [...]

Every once in a while I walk into a brand new bar or restaurant that pretty much ticks all the boxes, and The Waterside Inn, West Kilbride, is a case in point. What had resembled a dilapidated building off the main Largs to Ardrossan road is now a New-England-meets-Cape-Cod restaurant at the water’s edge, with [...]