McLennan’s, the ninth venue from Glasgow hospitality group, Merchant Pubs & Bars, opened last week on the former Whistler on the Green site.
Named after Victorian-era Glasgow businessman, civic figure and philanthropist, Bailie James McLennan J.P. (1838–1899), McLennan’s holds one of Glasgow’s rare old licences, so it can serve alcohol with food from 9am, seven days a week. As such, Merchant Pubs described it as ‘two venues in one’.
By day, it is conceived as a ‘bright, welcoming pub with the curtains open, daylight pouring in and Radio Clyde playing throughout’, where coffee and panettone are served for breakfast, with toasties, soup and chips available until 6pm, and dogs are most welcome.
By night, from 6pm til midnight, the kitchen closes and the speakeasy opens, aiming to take its cue from the underworld of the old Saltmarket – ‘the curtains close, the daylight goes, the cocktail shakers shake and the late night eclectic, electro playlist takes over’.
Merchant Pubs & Bars now operates nine venues. While McLennan’s is the newest, only four months ago it opened anderson’s pub + institute on King St, on the site previously occupied by The 13th Note.
The group’s other venues are BAaD – Barra’s Art & Design, Blackfriars of Bell Street, Nonna Said, The Drake, Rascal, 99 Hutcheson Street and Cuvée West.
The McLennan’s opening, which coincided with November 5th’s bonfire night, was marked with some theatrics, as its handwritten logo was projected at sites around the east end of the city, including the McLennan Arch, just outside the new venue at the entrance to Glasgow Green, which was itself named after the titular Victorian Bailie.
The historical bent of McLennan’s theme and design draws on the Victorian Saltmarket, once a warren of closes and wynds where the police allegedly feared to tread.
This extends into the drinks menu, ‘A Miscellany of Outrageous Drinks by James McLennan’, which is designed like a nineteenth-century chapbook, with each cocktail telling a story from those Saltmarket streets.
Group Bars manager at Merchant Pubs & Bars, Ewan Angus, said: “It’s been so exciting to create McLennan’s from the ground up.
“I loved researching James McLennan and the old Saltmarket. There are so many incredible stories, and every drink on the menu has one behind it.
“Seeing his name lit up on the Arch last night, right outside our front door, was the perfect way to begin. I can’t wait to share all our new creations with Glasgow.”
