The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Boozy Cow milking it for charity at new city site
Restaurant takes over Laings bar and will give all its profits to local charities
A new restaurant that gives all its profits to charity will open in Dundee today.
The Boozy Cow restaurant in the former Laings bar in Roseangle will share its profits with five city charities and owner Garreth Wood said he hopes the chain will be able to donate at least £1 million a year to charities by 2020.
The Boozy Cow chain, which was launched two years ago, already has premises in Aberdeen, Stirling and Edinburgh.
Mr Wood, 38, said he hopes to open further restaurants in Inverness, Glasgow and then possibly St Andrews before considering the expansion of Boozy Cow into the north of England.
He said: “Over the past two years we have have raised just over £500,000 for charity and we want to be able to give away £1 million a year by 2020.
“We do exactly what we say we are: we publish our accounts and have them audited so we are very transparent about giving 100% of our profits to charity.”
Mr Wood, the son of Aberdeen-based oil billionaire Sir Ian Wood, has run restaurants since he was 25 and said he launched Boozy Cow to put his business expertise to philanthropic use.
He said: “I love the philanthropic side of my work and am pretty good at running bars and restaurants so a couple of years ago I sat down and said why don’t we combine the two?”
The charities that benefit from each restaurant are chosen by staff, which Mr Wood says gives employees an even greater stake in the success of the business.
In Dundee the chosen charities are Art Angel, which uses art therapy to help people with mental health difficulties, youth charity The Hot Chocolate Trust, Dundee Women’s Aid, the Mid-Lin Day Care Centre and Help for Kids.
Mr Wood said while Boozy Cow is a charitable enterprise, he hopes customers to be drawn in by the quality of food.
“We are a burger and cocktail bar serving good local produce,” he said.
He said the company has its own herd of cows in the Cairngorms and that all patties are prepared and cooked on site.
In terms of covers, the Dundee restaurant will be the largest Boozy Cow restaurant so far and the company has retained Laings’ famous beer garden at its refitted Roseangle premises.
Mr Wood said the city was an obvious choice for his latest restaurant.
“I think Dundee is possibly the most vibrant city in Scotland at the moment. There is a real buzz about it,” he said.
“It’s somewhere that is definitely on the up. We’ve had it on our radar for a long time.”
Thirty-five jobs have been created in Dundee and more than 150 people applied for jobs in the restaurant when it began recruiting at the start of the year.
Over the past two years we have have raised just over £500,000 for charity