00:00good morning from the ubiquitous chip i'm here with will allen the manager
00:06and good morning good morning well it's lovely light in here yeah it's a little bit gray today
00:12but doing all right this is a room this is a building that means quite a lot to people in
00:18glasgow and in your time here have you you know like the conversations that you have when people
00:24come in here you must hear a lot of stories and about people who've had a long-term connection
00:28yeah absolutely i mean you hear sort of generational stories people coming in on the first date they
00:36met here they got married here had their kids the kids have had their first date here um so yeah i
00:42mean loads and loads of stories people whose faces are still on the wall who come in and tell you
00:48that you know malcolm's over there and we've got brian finney at the back who still comes in every
00:52day for a pint yeah so yeah yeah it's uh it's an important place in glasgow uh lots of lots of
01:00people have come through these walls everyone seems to have worked here at some point yeah i always
01:05had a story to tell and so next stage there's some exciting things happening here um what what's
01:13happening over the summer yeah so uh big refurb um you know i think the the important thing is that
01:20we're sort of keeping the essence of the place um a lot of the stuff that's going on is just sort of
01:25setting ourselves up um sort of move into the next sort of 10 20 years um but yeah exciting time it's
01:33what we've been waiting for for you know a year or so now um and we've known it's been coming now that
01:38we've got the sort of green light it's just uh very exciting so uh a lot of work being done in the
01:45kitchens a lot of work being done on the roof and um you know touch-ups here and there in the bars
01:50and that kind of stuff new furniture um and yeah just exciting time for us really if you can hear
01:58the slight trickle calming trickle of water in the background that's because we're actually sitting
02:03right beside the cart pond which is a feature of the evictus chip from here you can see murals that are
02:10throughout the building that were um that were produced by alistair gray that are um increasingly
02:16an important part of the heritage of the west end it's not often you do a renovation of a restaurant
02:21where you've got to think about ponds and artworks of that no no i mean it's been it's been a little
02:26bit of a headache in terms of uh trying to figure out how we're going to navigate around that but
02:30the most important thing is that we're keeping the pond and we're keeping the murals and everything's
02:34going to be really looked after um but yeah it's it's a bit of a unique place i think it's uh caused
02:41a few headaches for the people having to design things but it also is for the better when you
02:47have to work around these things i think it makes people think about things definitely and you know
02:52it'll be great to see it back as it should be um so in terms of new stuff this room will have a bit of
03:00a makeover yes this will stay the statement but uh the wee bar uh which is one of my favorite parts
03:05of this building gonna be a not so wee bar right so the wee bars get that an up an upgrade in terms
03:10of it's going to get a little bit of an extension right yeah so i think if you look at it from the
03:14outside it's probably not going to look too different um so again very much keeping the sort
03:19of essence of the place um but we're knocking through into the bookies that were acquired about a year
03:24or so ago now um and that's going to be split up into bits so we've got um a little bit of a sort
03:30of snug area going through the back um a little bit of the kitchens going through into there as well
03:36um just to give the guys a little bit more space for prep and storage and that kind of thing
03:41um but yeah i think if you if you were to walk past it it wouldn't really look too different you
03:45might just see a little doorway that goes into a nice little hidden bit at the back yeah and again very
03:50much in keeping with uh everything that's been there and making sure that we're still on the
03:56forefront of all the whiskey stuff that's going on there's as there's a little bit of a pause
04:01uh you know hospitality it's a fairly full throttle existence as you have a little bit of a pause
04:07and you have the opportunity to look around glasgow this summer um what kind of places are your
04:12favorite parts of town yeah i mean it's hard to say i mean i think a lot of the stuff that's going on
04:17and south side at the moment's great um you know in terms of restaurants i love the stuff that the
04:22guys at big counter are doing um there's some great new places the um you know margot and um
04:30sets underneath that are both fantastic i've only been a couple of times to serve once to margot um
04:37yeah i mean to be honest with you and when i get days off i just kind of do what i do for my job which
04:43is go and eat food and drink nice wine so good hobby yeah uh so the kitchen uh you know is chef
04:51happy about uh you know having a chance to kind of you know really get to get i think the big the big
04:56change is going to be upstairs i think it's going to really set us up to be able to do a little bit
05:01more high volume um a little bit faster paced obviously still keeping uh the sort of essence of all
05:09that sort of scottish produce um but you know i've had a look at some of the ideas for menus i'm
05:15not going to give too much away just yet but it's going to be a little bit different um and the
05:20kitchen itself will be set up for us to kind of do that and you know be able to cater to a few more
05:26people slightly higher volume all those kind of things which has been quite difficult to do over the
05:30past few years with the sort of space that's available to us um so yeah yeah exciting up there cool
05:37well i'm looking forward to coming back and seeing what it's like when all the work's
05:40finished best of luck and have a great summer thank you very much thank you
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