By Dave Hunter
Business partners Conor McGeady, Matthew Mustard and Gary McKernan are good examples of the expression ‘jump in with both feet’.
When Mustard, who owns coffee shop business Grain and Grind, decided to close one of his coffee shops in the West End of Glasgow, the trio decided to transform the unit into a new business.
The friends designed what would become the Corner Shop restaurant themselves, before rolling their sleeves up and getting to work on the refurbishment – carrying out the vast majority of the work between them.
When SLTN sat down with McGeady – who had worked at Glasgow venues including Brett, Fallachan and The Gannet prior to opening Corner Shop – he explained that the venue’s name was a nod to the unit’s past.
“The name was something we couldn’t agree on”
“The name was something we couldn’t agree on,” he said. “We narrowed it down to the fact that it’s on a corner. Corner Wine Shop? Corner Wine Store? It used to be a corner shop – it was a Londis before it was a coffee shop. So let’s just call it that. It’s quite catchy and people seem to like it.”
The resulting venue is a Spanish-inspired restaurant and wine bar that has quickly gathered acclaim and popularity with pundits and the local community alike.
Top quality Spanish-style small plates and a wide range of wines – again centred on the Spanish regions – are at the heart of the Corner Shop offer.
The most recent iteration of the regularly-changing menu includes dishes such as acorn-fed Ibérian pork salchichón; grilled chorizo toast with Basque cider sage sauce; and grilled flatbread with whipped sobrassada & Mascarpone and Aleppo Honey.
“We pretty early on decided that there’s not the kind of Spanish restaurants in Glasgow that we like to see – the likes of Barrafina in London – that are a nice contemporary take on very traditional tapas bars, so that’s the route we went down,” Conor explained.
“We all spend a lot of time over there. I go over to Spain multiple times a year. Our head chef spends a lot of time there.”
While acknowledging Corner Shop isn’t the cheapest restaurant in the city, Conor said value and approachability are important to the team.
To that end, Corner Shop has introduced a two-course lunch menu which has proven a hit with locals.
The latest version, at £20 per-person, lets customers choose between BBQ Squid Encebollado (with caramelised onions, salsa verde, and lemon vinaigrette) and British asparagus escabeche (with Mornay sauce and chive) for the first course, with either a whole pork chop (with caramelised cauliflower puree and espibacas a la Catalana) or BB courgette (with caramelised cauliflower puree, and espibacas a la Catalana) for the second course.
While customers can stick with the two courses, there are optional add-ons – as well as house wines at £5 a glass – and so despite the value the offer does deliver a decent spend per head, said Conor.
“We’re affordable but we’re in no way the cheapest restaurant in Glasgow”
“You can easily spend a lot of money here. We’re not a cheap restaurant,” he said. “We’re affordable but we’re in no way the cheapest restaurant in Glasgow.
“But with this menu, it might not have to be a special occasion that people can only afford to come here for. They can come on a whim.”
Value is also important when dealing with the restaurant’s suppliers.
Like everyone else in hospitality, Corner Shop has seen its cost base rise in the course of the past year, and when SLTN spoke to McGeady the owners were in the process of an extensive price review to ensure they are getting the best prices possible from their range of suppliers.
It’s essential if they are going to continue to deliver that core product of great quality for great value.
Conor said when faced with rising costs and determined to deliver value, they are left with the option of making less money or shopping for better prices.
“But we can also be clever with what we do,” he said.
“We can also use more affordable products and still treat them with care and creativity – both on the bar and in the kitchen – and still give the guest an amazing product at a good price.
“That’s the best way to do it; use our passion and our skills to use some cheaper seafood, lesser-known cuts of meat.
“What has been very popular, that we can sell cheaper than our aged Scottish beef is getting the Iberian presa – the pork neck – in. It’s a beautiful cut, almost tastes like beef and is really affordable compared to the amazing Scotch beef we have.
“So there are alternatives out there, we just have to have a bit more thought, more knowledge and creativity behind it.”
The approach seems to have worked so far.
Corner Shop’s first big win came in the form of SLTN’s New Business of the Year award at last year’s SLTN Awards, before further accolades that included being named one of the best new restaurants in the UK by Condé Nast Traveller.
Conor said the SLTN win during the restaurant’s first year in business was ‘overwhelming’.
“It was really emotional. It was overwhelming for us”
“We were completely overjoyed,” he said. “The feedback on the night – the amount of people walking up to us saying how much they loved Corner Shop – it was really emotional. It was overwhelming for us.”
Buoyed by the success of their first venture, the owners are now preparing to open a second unit, this time on Glasgow’s south side.
Called Next Door, the new venue will also have a focus on quality food served in small plates, as well as top quality cocktails.
“We didn’t plan on doing something within the first year of opening but it was a good opportunity, it was a good unit we were offered,” said McGeady.
“It’s just a really good area.
“There’s another couple of cool cocktail bars nearby. But we don’t think that we’re in direct competition.
“I think each one of us does something a wee bit different, and all that does is make that area a destination.
