JD Wetherspoon plans to invest £4 million on revamping a former nightclub in Glasgow.
The UK-wide pub chain is set to develop the former Waverley Tea Rooms and Tusk nightclub in the Shawlands area of the city.
The A-listed building, which was owned by G1 Group, now the Scotsman Group, has been empty since 2017. It previously housed the Waverley Picture House, which opened back in 1922.
Plans for a Wetherspoons on the site were approved by Glasgow City Council back in 2020.
READ MORE: Pub giant Wetherspoon hails 'exceptionally strong' trading
On Friday, JD Wetherspoon secured permission to alter the premises licence for the building.
Glasgow’s Licensing Board heard how the firm will invest £4 million in revamping the old building - with the new venue set to employ 60 to 70 staff once open.
Archie MacIver, the licensing lawyer representing Wetherspoons, said the licence variation would “take out the nightclub-related elements and adapt it into more of a public house type licence in the traditional Wetherspoon style”.
The firm removed live entertainment from the licence and brought forward closing time to midnight. The pub would have a total capacity of 680 persons.
Mr MacIver said: “The applicants don’t need any introduction, they have a number of premises within your honours’ jurisdiction. Until recently they had one within this locality, the Sir John Stirling Maxwell in Shawlands Arcade.
“These premises closed and the new site, which is the purpose of this application, was acquired some time back. The premises that closed was actually the second Wetherspoons in Glasgow and it celebrated its 25th anniversary just before it closed.”
He added the £4m redevelopment of the venue would “bring back a very handsome building to the quality it was in days gone by”.
JD Wetherspoon previously operated a pub on nearby Kilmarnock Road, the Sir John Stirling Maxwell, which closed earlier this year.
The Sir John Stirling Maxwell pub was part of Shawlands Arcade, which is set to be redeveloped, with planning permission in principle granted in March.
No date has been provided for when the revamp work will begin or when the pub will open.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel