Jehad Hatu, the owner of Glasgow hospitality businesses Grunting Growler and Lunar, is, by his own admission, stubborn beyond all belief.
The first of those businesses, Grunting Growler – a specialist craft beer bar and shop which sells draught beer for takeaway in ‘growler’ containers – was set up ten years ago with a £1000 grant from the Prince’s Trust (now the King’s Trust), a £5000 loan, and ‘just a bit of grit and determination’.
While Jehad had spotted a gap in the market, the concept for the business also came at a time of adversity.
Having been born in the US and spent time during his childhood living in the States, Scotland and Palestine, Jehad moved to Scotland full-time in his early twenties. Having began his hospitality career States-side in famous steakhouse chain Outback, Jehad continued his journey working for James and Louise Rusk at Glasgow institution The Butchershop.
“I still remember to this day James talking about, people don’t come to The Butchershop to buy expensive steaks. They can go anywhere in Glasgow and buy a steak if they want. They can go to a Wetherspoon and buy a steak for half the price,” recalled Jehad.
“They come to The Butchershop because they love the experience. They love the ambience, they love the service, they love the lighting, they love the music. They love every single fine detail about it. They don’t actually know that, it just makes them feel good when they come in, and it’s down to all those little small details, which we have to get right every single time to make sure they come back.
“That really struck a note with me and I’ve kept that throughout my career in hospitality since then.”
It was all going well until that aforementioned adversity struck; at the age of 24 Jehad was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
At what must have been a gruelling time that stubborn-ness raised its head. He drew up the original business plan for what would be Grunting Growler in his hospitality bed.
“My thing in life is every cloud has a silver lining, and so many positive things came from that experience,” he told SLTN.
“I met my wife in hospital, who also had cancer. We’ve been together now for 13 years, married for three and a half. We have a one year-old daughter. We raised lots of money for charity at the time, we raised lots of awareness for child and teenage cancers and testicular cancers as well.”
Jehad’s passion for craft beer was ignited during his college days in the US, when a friend of his would bring six-packs of craft beer to parties. At that time, the craft movement in the US was just beginning to boom and, several years later, Jehad could see the same boom beginning here in Scotland.
Having secured a unit – a former off-sales on Old Dumbarton Road – Jehad launched Grunting Growler initially as a shop while undergoing the process of adding on-sales to the licence.
Craft was growing in popularity but it’s never been a cheap proposition (and even less so now), and so the on-sales side of the business was part of that invaluable, Rusk-style point of difference.
“We never compete on price, that’s not our mission,” said Jehad. “We compete on service and experience.”
Like his former employers at The Butchershop, it’s something he is clearly passionate about.
“This is what I get joy and excitement out of,” said Jehad.
“I want to help you. We don’t have to talk about hops, we don’t have to talk about brewing techniques. Let’s just talk about flavour. You’re not going to know about what that style of beer is, you’re not going to know what that hop is, but you know if you like something sweet, something bitter, something low-ABV, something high-ABV, then I can help walk you through this. Every time you come back I can give you a little bit of information and you’ll slowly start knowing things before you know it.
“There’s nothing worse than when you go into a place and they start getting a little bit cocky and conceited and almost feel aggravated because they have to explain something to people. What’s the point in that? We all started somewhere. When I started drinking craft beer I knew fuck-all. I had to take time and effort to learn it.”
The other thing Grunting Growler competes on is range.
The venue boasts four double fridges full of craft beers, with anywhere between 250 and 300 beers available at any one time. Then there are the eight draught taps, which customers can either enjoy on the premises or take home in growlers.
On average, between 15 and 25 new products are brought in every week.
That variety, and focus on service, has carried across to Jehad’s second business, southside cocktail bar Lunar, which opened its doors in 2022.
The bar – bigger than Grunting Growler, with a staff of four to GG’s two, but still a compact operation – changes its cocktail menu four times a year.
“Everything has stayed the same (between the units),” said Jehad.
“Even although Grunting Growler and Lunar sell very different things, we offer the same as well. Everything is about experience. People don’t come in here because they want beer, they come in because they want the experience. People don’t go into Lunar because they just want cocktails. They go in because they like the lighting, the mood, the experience and all the rest of it. We always say, service first, cocktails second.”
It’s clearly a proposition that has chimed with locals in both Glasgow’s west end and southside, with Grunting Growler having now marked a decade in business and Lunar coming up on four years.
Last month Jehad organised Grunting Growler’s first ever beer festival to mark the venue’s tenth anniversary.
Hosted at Glasgow University’s Queen Margaret Union, the event welcomed 500 customers past and present and ten brewery bars. Each of the participating breweries also created a collaboration beer with Grunting Growler to mark the occasion. In addition to the range of beers on offer there was also a DJ and even a wing-eating contest.
Most of all, there were a lot of familiar faces.
“It was supposed to be a one-off, but after experiencing the happiness and joy on everyone’s faces on the day, and reconnecting with so many customers, I just have an itch to do it again. We’re definitely going to be doing it again next year.”
