Timing far from heavenly for new venue to open
A NEW house music venue and cocktail bar launched in Swansea – just days before Wales’s Covid nightclub restrictions came into force.
Heaven Swansea replaces the former La Cantina unit on Wind Street and aims to bring something completely different to Swansea.
Local residents Greg Pickin and Christian Roche, managing directors of Swansea-based house music events brand 100% Old Skool, are behind the new venture – which marries fancy cocktails with classic house music in a bright and vibrant setting.
The venue consists of a cocktail bar on the ground floor with DJS and mixologists and a club room on the first floor.
Earlier this year, when plans for the new venue were announced, Greg explained the new venue is focused around “amazing music, world-class cocktails and world-class service”.
Whilst the pandemic has caused some delays with the new venue (it initially hoped to open in time for Beaujolais Day), Greg, Christian and their team have opened the venue’s doors to the public.
Greg told us previously: “We are going to have amazing music from the best DJS in Wales, world-class cocktails with our own little twists, and world-class service.”
While clubbers are sure to enjoy the bright setting, the club room with its dance floor and the DJS playing downstairs, the drinks menu is also expected to prove particularly popular.
On the drinks menu at Heaven
Swansea are 12 distinct cocktails, devised by bar manager Dan Williams who was recently placed in the Top 50 bartenders in the UK.
The bar also has an extensive ‘drinks database’ of cocktails and spirits, so customers will be able to suggest flavours and ingredients for other cocktails, if they want something that’s not on the usual menu.
The venue officially launched on December 17, just a few days before new Covid-19 restrictions came into force in Wales which order nightclubs to close and other hospitality premises to reintroduce social distancing and one-way systems wherever possible.
Fortunately for Heaven Swansea, the venue is categorised as a bar not a nightclub – but Greg has had to adapt Heaven’s ‘clubroom’ to make it follow the new guidelines.
“We’re classed as a bar but with our clubroom, we’ll check the rules around music volume [previous Covid-19 rules required nightclubs and venues to limit the volume of their music] and we’ll put loads of tables out and have table service,” he said. “We’re well-equipped for tableservice, we’ve got a great front of house team.
“We’re in the middle of the pandemic, we don’t know how long it will go on for. We just have to adapt to the climate and circumstances.”
The venue launched on Friday, December 17 – but the team are already looking to the future.
In the long-term, they hope to make Heaven Swansea so successful that they can launch sister sites elsewhere in Wales and across the UK.
“We’ve done lots of research and nobody [no other venue] plays house music and serves cocktails. If it kicks off like we want it to, we’d look to take this on to other towns and cities.”
The team at Heaven Swansea said it would like to thank Swansea Council for its support after the venue received a “small regeneration grant” earlier this year, to help them fund the development of the venue.
The Wind Street venue will be observing the table-service rule and all other Welsh Government Covid-19 laws, but when restrictions lift the venue will typically be open from early evening until 1.30am with a bar downstairs and ‘nightclub room’ upstairs, with entry around £5 .