Relocating away from Scotland’s cities hasn’t dulled Mal’s commitment to first class hospitality

When Mal Spence talks about hospitality, people tend to listen. 

The drinks industry veteran’s career took him from Edinburgh’s Montpeliers Group to head bartender at The Blythswood in his native Glasgow (now Kimpton Blythswood Square) before co-founding Kelvingrove Café in the city’s Finnieston area. 

Somewhere in there he also became a multiple-time SLTN Mixologist of the Year. 

Advocacy roles with companies including Brown-Forman, Distell and Atom Brands followed, before Mal returned to Kelvingrove Cafe in 2020 as the bar’s head of drinks strategy. 

Helping steer the venue through the tricky Covid period, Mal simplified the bar’s drinks list and dialled up the brand partnerships. 

“The strategy was really good, and it mainly involved trying to extract as much revenue as we could from activations and listing support and stuff, which had pretty much dried up,” he explained.  

“It was along the lines of ‘how can we work better with partners to maximise the volume they’re going to get, but also maximise the revenue we’ll get from that as well?’ 

“The six years I spent with brands really helped with being able to put together that type of strategy.”

The post-Covid period brought about a change in direction. Though Mal was still working with the Café, he was also increasingly keen to make a move out of Glasgow. 

Having met his now partner shortly before she relocated back to Arran, Mal found he was increasingly drawn to the island lifestyle. 

“Why isn’t everybody screaming about Arran?”

“I didn’t know anything about Arran,” he said. 

“I’d been all over the world and I didn’t even know about this tiny wee island off the west coast.”

Suffice to say, he was impressed. 

“I was like, why isn’t everybody screaming about this place? It’s paradise! And just the freedom and the lifestyle it offers you. I fell in love straight away.”

After two years of commuting between the island and Glasgow, Mal relocated to Arran full-time in late 2023.

“I had a really frank conversation with Baz. I was like ‘look, man, I don’t want to be here. You know I don’t want to be here. So if I need to go and find a new flat, you’re going to have to pay me more money than I know is necessary for the role I’m doing. I’ll take a step back now. I’ll move into a more consultancy role and not be here on a weekly basis’. Barry was amazing. He helped me get set up on the island. And then, obviously, I had to find a job.”

A stint as a tour guide at Arran Distillers’ Lochranza Distillery followed, and although he enjoyed his time there, it’s probably safe to say he was a little over-qualified for the role. 

So when a position at Brodick’s Douglas Hotel came up earlier this year, Mal decided to move back behind the bar as the hotel’s food and beverage manager. 

And just like that, he was back in his element. 

“With my experience, I immediately saw the challenges.”

“I immediately realised what the challenges in front of me were going to be,” he said. 

“The bistro in here is just incredible. The standard of the food is brilliant, the standard of the service is brilliant, which gave me the opportunity and the space to tackle the bar.

“With my experience and my knowledge I immediately saw so many challenges that were presented, that were probably not that visible to the majority of people, but I could see the impact it was having on service, the impact it was having on the consistency of product, which was a real (sticking point) for me.”

Since joining the hotel in April, Mal has been tackling the many small operational issues affecting the efficiency of The Douglas’s bar, as well as overhauling the venue’s drinks list. 

 The new list has a focus on classics, what Mal describes as ‘really nice, simple drinks that are popular and are going to be easy to keep consistent’. 

It hasn’t been easy. 

Operating on an island brings its own set of challenges, one of which is sourcing particular products. 

The comparatively remote nature of the island means it isn’t worthwhile for many suppliers to deliver there. The solution is for the suppliers that do – among them Tennent’s, Braehead Foods and Mark Murphy – to bring other companies’ products across in their trucks when they make the crossing. 

And that spirit of co-operation is doubled on the island itself. 

“Working in hospitality on Arran is a totally different ballgame,” said Mal. 

“There’s a lot of things I don’t understand about the island and the community and I’m quickly learning that. And it’s really nice to see what a community looks like when it’s actually working.

“All the problems I’ve hit that I can’t solve in-house, I’ve found out really quickly there’s a community that’s striving to help me solve that problem. It’s never felt like that before. I know Glasgow and Edinburgh’s bar communities are quite tight, but when you’ve got somebody who’s maybe working in an ice cream company that wants to help you solve problems, it’s really nice to see how everybody is quite connected here and everybody wants to help each other.”

Staffing, too, can be a challenge, with far fewer applicants for positions than Mal was used to seeing at Kelvingrove Café. 

“12 hour shifts, back to back, isn’t fair. It was never fair.”

Though there, too, the landscape has changed, with younger staff no longer willing to work the kind of hours expected when Mal started out in the industry. 

“The 12 hour shifts, back to back, are a thing of the past. 

“The reality is we shouldn’t be asking people to be doing these types of things. It’s not fair. It was never fair. And, thankfully, this generation coming through are standing up to it and just going ‘nope’ and that’s going to force change.”

What won’t change is Mal’s utter commitment to quality product and service. 

“I think it’s all about elevating the experience and that doesn’t have to be as intrusive as bartenders think it has to be,” he said. “I’ve been afforded a bit of perspective by working away with brands and taking that step away from the bar, and knowing about what it really takes to create a good experience for the guest. And sometimes it can just be the smallest thing, but it’s all in the details.”

Arran may be a world away from global advocacy roles or the bustle of the central belt, but it’s clear that the idyllic island life hasn’t dulled that perfectionist edge. 

“These guys all think I’m lovely, I’m nice, I’m dead supportive. 

“Wait till they see me once a cocktail goes on that bar and it’s not what it should be.”