My attention was grabbed today by an online petition to save the Halt Bar on Woodlands Road (as if you didn't know where it is...). I was unaware, prior to this, that the Halt was under threat in any way. But the more I have thought about the situation, the angrier I have become.
The thought of turning an existing pub into a 'gastro-pub' is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. Some pubs should serve food. That should be an option open to patrons. I do not object to the concept of a 'gastro-pub'. What I do object to, however, is turning a good pub into a 'gastro-pub'. Allow me to illustrate with a comparison between the Hogshead/Primary/Old Schoolhouse and Uisge Beatha/Dram!
When I first came to Glasgow, the Hogshead was a generic food-pub option that was handy if not particularly memorable. If you were hungry, but wanted a pint also, it was good to have that option available. The place had no real distinctive character, the interior is spacious and the atmosphere is pretty much non-existent. That's fine. In its various subsequent incarnations, the overall vibe of the place hasn't changed. I would not miss it if it closed tomorrow. I can't imagine many people shedding a tear over its passing.
Uisge Beatha on the other hand, instantly became one of my favourite places to go drinking in Glasgow and retained its place in my top-five for all the time I lived here until it underwent its recent evolution from pub to 'gastro-pub'. I remember walking home from town having done some Christmas shopping and I saw the 'new' Uisge Beatha and I was almost overcome with revulsion. I went inside to see if it could possibly be as bad as it looked and it was a thousand times worse. A man outside, a patron, who appeared to be American was loudly extolling the virtues of this place for all to hear. I was sickened by his display. The list of things wrong with Dram! is substantial and it's far from necessary to go into it in depth here. Suffice to say, they turned a real pub with real character into a faceless, homogenised, corporate shadow of its former self. Like when a good friend joins a cult, it's a sad, sad time.
What bothers me more than anything about this shift away from real pubs is how short-sighted it is. Yes, 'gastro-pubs' are in at the moment. People who work in marketing will tell you that it's easier to make more money running one of these enterprises than it is a traditional pub. I will tell those marketing types to FUCK OFF. I will urge like-minded people, right-thinking people, to also tell them to FUCK OFF. If I want to eat and drink in the same place I'll go to any one of the hundreds of existing establishments already dotted around the West-end. If I want to share my drinking space with a shower of arseholes, I'm sure I can find a place (Dram!) where I can do that too. But soon, the marketing types will realise, once all the pubs are 'gastro' that some people want to just go to a cool place and drink. And then they'll realise that it's a hell of a lot easier to put the 'gastro' into a pub than it is to take it out and we'll all be fucked.
Make a stand now, or say goodbye to real pubs. It's as simple as that.
