If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.. someone should’ve told new city bar owners
The bar at the basement of Glasgow’s Brunswick Hotel had developed cult status over the years as an alternative hangout which gained its reputation without having to wave any flags or write it in a neon sign.
Last year, the Brunswick – as the bar was known to many who considered it to be one of the coolest in the city – was overhauled by new owners. And now there’s a neon sign. It’s a slightly less subtle marker of how this joint wants itself to be seen. “RED XXX DISTRICT” reads the neon, greeting visitors as they cross the threshold. Above the gantry, there’s another sign, reading: “Dive bars aren’t created, they become.” Nowhere on the walls is there a sign saying: “Actual dive bars don’t need to put signs up saying they’re dive bars.”
Wh e r e once there was an a l t ernat ive bar which organically developed a reputation as a pre-club venue (sometimes the club was downstairs in the basement), now there’s a place flaunting its seedy-chic rep in punters’ faces.
The Brunswick was an indef inable mish- mash of influences. Somehow it had both a Mexican cantina vibe and the air of the kind of place you might come across in Ibiza, run by a pair who’d sold up and dropped out in the 90s.
Postcards, sent in by customers, had spread up the walls and along the ceiling. It had a unique vibe, like nowhere else in the city.
Now called The Amsterdam, there are bicycles hanging above the bar and Red Light negronis on tap. There’s even something called hash on the menu – they’re that determined you get the point.
It’s a theme bar to Amsterdam, a novelty cap-doff to ex-tourism and smoky vices, all under red light. A curious novelty pub in a part of the city once known as its coolest quarter.
The food – a sourdough cheesesteak with fries – was fine, although that rocket salad had a stale-water taste to it, which meant there wasn’t much herb taken on this trip to Amsterdam. Service was excellent, though, pleasant and attentive, and the place was a busy mix of post-festive revellers keeping the party going and sales-weary shoppers in for a bite.
Pub Spy spent many happy days and nights in The Brunswick and one or two in the real Amsterdam, with some tales to tell too. But if they say the past is a foreign country, then it’s probably best left there.