HospoHang aims to establish an inclusive space for Glasgow hospitality staff
MEMBERS of a growing bartender group in Glasgow worked up a sweat last month at their latest event.
HospoHang is a community group founded by Zach Sapato of cocktail bar The Absent Ear and which is open to anyone working in hospitality around Glasgow.
The initiative, launched earlier this year, aims to bring together members of Glasgow’s hospitality industry through regular face to face events around the city.
So far HospoHang has hosted a basketball league, a mezcal night and a bowling night, with the backing of various drinks brands.
Last month saw the group team up with Bounty Rum and Glasgow fitness trainer Pedro Mejias to host a Soca Fit session at The Rum Shack in Glasgow.
A Caribbean-style fitness class, Soca Fit combines aerobics and dance.
It wasn’t all work, though. The class was followed by Daiquiris, courtesy of Bounty Rum.
“We hope to have an event a month to connect the hospitality community, bring everybody together and really just have fun with people who work in a pretty difficult industry,” Sapato told SLTN.
With many conventional social events scheduled around nine to five working, he said he felt it was important to have events that were designed around hospitality workers.
“I think most of society is structured for day job hours,” he said. “And to have events and activities that are structured for people who work mostly night hours is really unique and a really important, necessary resource for socialisation.
“Hospitality has always been a difficult industry. It’s always been undervalued and underpaid.
“And I think leaning into these opportunities that brands can provide for us can give us opportunities to socialise, opportunities to learn and grow and opportunities to have fun that weren’t in Glasgow before.”
Luke Crighton of Independent Spirits Ambassadors, which distributes Bounty Rum on behalf of owner Spiribam, said HospoHang ‘is going to be more and more relevant’ in the year ahead.
“Having a shared space on something like Facebook is great, but actually getting face to face is what’s going to help a lot of people,” he said.
“We’ve come out of two and a half very difficult years. We’re going into what’s forecast to be another very difficult year. And if anybody has pulled through these years so far and is going to make it through, we kind of need to look after each other.”
Sapato said hospitality workers ‘have a shared experience, a shared mentality, and we have shared difficulties of dealing with our job and the intricacies of that job’.
“So I do think because of our shared experience, it is really fun to see everyone come together and be able to talk about stuff, make new pals and be able to connect on those shared experiences.”
To find out more about HospoHang and future events, visit its Instagram page
