The front door is blocked off. Brightly coloured paving stones, huge blocks, are being laid out on the pavement, all the way up the Calton Entry to the Barras. Surprising, not least because I’m sure the roadworks weren’t here when I waltzed out onto the street after dinner a couple of days ago. Also, the Barras Art and Design building is one of only two new structures to be built in this part of the city in the last ninety years. The fabric of the street has been slow to change. Other aspects are in a state of flux.
Inside, via the side entrance, although I could have sneaked through the barbers. There’s little business units that run alongside the main floor of BAaD. The main venue is housed under a grand, glass arched ceiling. At the front, a stage, where speakers are being arranged. A large screen above, which shows sport. The space is populated by a regimented selection of tables today. I take a seat near the bar, which is under the restaurant mezzanine and beside a seafood station. To the side of that is a pizza kitchen. There’s a shop and bakery being fitted near that. It’s all happening.
I’m here to meet Brian Traynor and Ricky Scoular. They are an energetic duo behind the scenes in Glasgow life. Their week revolves around this venue, music festivals, club nights, street food, pop-ups…
It’s a good time to revisit the story of BAaD, the Most Stylish Venue in Scotland, as announced at the Scottish Style Awards in the Kelvingrove Gallery.
You very rarely see Brian and Ricky in the same room at the same time. It’s a function of keeping the show on the road across mutliple locations. Here they are in September 2016 when they created a splash by announcing they would be selling lobster and scallop dishes at A’Challtainn Fish Restaurant & Bar, which is upstairs at BAaD.
Eyebrows were raised at the time. There’s invisible lines in this city and one of them disconnects the Gallowgate and the Barras from the rest of the city centre, and the Merchant City.
Preconceptions are being eroded, however. Look at us now, sitting eating king prawn linguini with the stylish local folk on a Wednesday afternoon as the Glasgow sunshine gleams through the glass roof.
Brian is telling me lots of things about Fiesta x Fold – the latest project from himself and Ricky – pesto, herb leaves, venison suppliers, his snowboarding holiday, a visiting DJ, a rum tasting menu night. I can’t really concentrate when I’m eating so I only really tune in when he mentions the latest recruit to the Calton fleeto at BAaD is Fiona McLean, who joins from Cameron House. “Fiona is joining us, she will have an influence on the service we are offering. She was the restaurant manager at Cameron House for a good two and a half years. She was the bar manager and led the regeneration part of the whiskey bar at the hotel. One of her managers at the time is now coming here as assistant manager.
“So, we’re really upping the ante on the service and whole general experience in here, but still keeping it as a relaxed atmosphere.
“We want people to come in and realise that you can still have top quality service, great local produce, good imaginative cooking, ideas throughout the menu, but also a much more relaxed environment. It’s very accessible to anybody and everybody.”
I was curious about how much of the building was crafted to make the venue and restaurant, how much was inherited. It is a very distinctive, idiosyncratic space, one that has been able to absorb a number of different uses.
“The shell as you see it, the shops and outside part have been here for 18 odd years. You know Norrie, that’s the landlord, he’s had the buildings down here for a number of years, and developed it with the shops and had the centre space. And they were doing some events, so there was already that history of the building being used for one-off events and weddings, and things like that. But in the last year and a half it’s had a massive sort of regeneration in the use of the building.
“The restaurant is obviously brand new, that’s something we’ve built from scratch. The mezzanine is what you see, the design, the tiles, all that is new. Even the floor that you see just now is new, although a lot of the materials we’ve used throughout have been reclaimed, polished up, re-cut and put in. We didn’t bring in anyone to design it, it was me, my sister Natalie and Ricky”.
One of the challenges for any venue is getting people to cross the threshold, so the combination of music gigs and special events has helped bring people to A’Challtainn restaurant. “When we decided to open up, I was under no illusions. We’d get no footfall, no passing traffic whatsoever. But, what if folk knew we had a really nice restaurant that serves really good food, and took a walk down here to see if there was anyone kicking about?
“We threw event after event after event at it at first, to get people down here, see the restaurant and then hopefully they liked what they saw.”
The type of niche music events and community events at BAaD brought together a mix of fashionable new arrivals and locals from the East End.
Brian says: “I think the main success in it becoming stylish is that it’s very natural.
“Come down and feel relaxed. It’s not exclusive. People generally like it because it wasn’t centred on an interior design and a menu and an event. It was trying to create an atmosphere, and that was a thing that we have always tried to do. Whether it’s a night at some club or a lunch at the restaurant or an event in a park, we try to look at the end point. We get a picture in our heads of what the experience will be, then work back from there. We had that picture in our head for BAaD.”
There’s talk of regeneration on High Street. A new residential area is being dropped in at the Trongate. What to do with the area around the Barras has been pondered by politicians and planners for a long time.
Brian mentions the roadworks outside as a tangible sign that the efforts of local businesses here will be supported. “The pavement and roads now, when you see it, it will be of the same standard as what they have at the Merchant City side. That’s a sign to people, that they should be confident to invest here, where there are restaurants, gallery spaces, bars opening, residential housing, all that kind of stuff. It’s a real start.”
“We work with everyone around us. There’s an atmosphere that is encouraging small independents to open.
“I think one of the important things about developing this area is that it’s not gentrification. It’s not. We need to do the regeneration process and retain a lot of existing business owners. We want them to thrive again from increased footfall. We want new business around here because we need that to develop the area. It needs to retain that character of the old market.”
“We do cooking classes in here and it’s 90 percent locals. We do Christenings, we do weddings, and it’s probably 60 percent locals. We do markets at the weekend and out of the market last weekend we had 17 stalls in there and 6 of them were from people that have had stalls and ran those for over 20 years across the road in the Barras. And they’re taking their stall in here and alongside their own because they see there’s the footfall and a slightly different customer coming down.
“So retaining that character for us is a massive part of the development of this place. We’re not looking to get new customers in and create a new vibe, we’re here because we love what existed here. Albeit it did take a downturn for so many years, but trying to bring that life back and retain that is a massive part of the development of this place.”
Ricky walks over to join us. He’s been in a meeting at another table. Brian tags out and goes to shake hands with a pal he’s spotted at the bar. I’m finished my linguini now and contemplating a can of Vedett. Meanwhile, Ricky is trying to convince someone at the next table to open a stall at the next style market.
I ask Ricky, when he looks at the venue, how much of it matches up to their original plans? How much is by design, how much is by accident?
“I would say the majority of it’s by design, it’s more or less where we wanted it to be. We see it very much as pushing on from what Norrie had already done here with the different units and art studio, and the shops.
“I see the venue as a creative hub, first and foremost. In terms of the Barras at the weekend, we’re doing things to drive new footfall, to bring in young people, it might be a wee bit intimidating for them to visit the Barras for whatever reason, but they’ll come here, and that’s a start.
“Also we work with the different unit owners to then help them then build from there. I want this to be the heartbeat of the Barras. It’s all connected to other things in the city, Drygate, street markets, Dennistoun, St Luke’s, High Street. People that are building their own communities.
“I think the footprint that we’ve got here in terms of square footage in the building and the flexibility that we’ve got, it then allows creative folk to dip in and dip out. So they attach on to us, and us vice-versa, then really it’s a bigger story to tell. Because there’s more of us, it’s strength in numbers across the city.”
We return to the idea of the most stylish venue in Scotland being in the East End, which may surprise some.
“It’s that invisible barrier of High Street isn’t it. People come down to the Merchant City, and they just go wherever they want. Then they go like roadrunner into the distance when they pass around here. We’re only about four minutes away from the Trongate and the city centre.
“I hope us being here will change things. Harri from the Sub Club would always say, “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.” And I very much feel that that’s the case for this place now, it’s location dependent – it’s great that we’re in the heart of the East End, but where we’re at right now is really sort of pushing the boundaries of a regeneration within this with creativity, style, live music, hopefully enhancing what already exists within Glasgow’s music scene. People then come down and trust that they’re coming down to something special.
We visit here often, it’s seldom the same twice. You might be having your dinner beside a local family celebration while there’s a corporate group drinking Champagne upstairs, a street market outside and a band plugging in mics on stage. All sharing this same space. It’s an unusual thing to accomplish for a venue, to be so many things for so many people.
Ricky warms to the subject: “Well, you know, you’re right, because you’ve got the restaurant. And you’ve got the courtyard which is different. And then we’ve got the outside, the backyard, different again.
“If you look at the street food places like Big Feed and Dockyard Social, they are coming at things from a particular direction.
“Then you’ve the Sub Club, King Tut’s, Saint Luke’s and they are music venues at the grassroots level. Elsewhere, there’s Gamba and Gandolfi and other cool fish restaurants.
“And what we’re doing is, we’re like a community, we’re like a complete mash-up of all of that. You come down and you can get all of that in the one place. A big melting pot for different people, like what you would get in Brooklyn or Melbourne or Berlin or other cities.
“That’s what I see happening in the East End at the moment. It’s becoming a more desirable place to live. Rent’s cheap, interesting things around you, a bit gritty and a bit edgy, but more culturally significant than other places in Glasgow.
So, does Ricky still think it was a big leap of faith opening the doors here? “I think I still feel like that when I open my eyes every morning, never mind even opening the doors [laughs].
“We came down here with a view of taking one of the units and turning it into a kitchen for street food pop-ups. And then we had a whole bunch of ideas. What we were going to do. Me and Brian, we’re an awfy pair for not letting something go past us. If an opportunity comes up, we’ll turn it into something. A couple of magpies.
“We don’t think we’ve made it here at all. There’s easier ways not to make money. Trust me. But we do believe that we’re doing the right thing at the right place and time, and we believe in it passionately. Otherwise we just wouldn’t do it.”
I wonder if winning the Scottish Style Awards validates the vision?
“Of course it does” Ricky says. “That award is great for us and for the area. Other things too. We won Best Newcomer from the Eating and Drinking Guide awards. We’ve started doing weddings now so you can have me bobbing about serving your wedding dinner.”
“And strange things like having production companies come here to use the location for filming. And being able to have Sister Sledge on stage in BAaD doing a Q and A and singing! Young Fathers wanting to have their after party here! Watching Scotland win against England in the rugby on the big screen and then selling out of lobsters! You work hard every day and it’s good to know that people want to be here.”
BAaD
54 Calton Entry
Glasgow
G40 2SB