Sell-out start for bar with beer garden

Following on from a successful sold-out opening weekend we take a look inside the new Dunfermline bar that’s brought the town’s only beer garden.

Taking on what was once a popular drinking establishment, a team of four friends have opened a new speakeasy bar, The Haberdashery, with a nod to the city’s linen industry of the 18th Century that made much of the town into what it is today.

Following a hugely successful fully-booked weekend at their premises on New Row, the team are thrilled that they’ve been able to bring the town its only beer garden and provide a new place for locals to socialise.

One of the owners, Rachel Christie, says that the idea for her and her friends to open up the bar came about very quickly.

She said: “Myself and my husband, Fraser Christie, and his friend Darren Fitzsimmons and his partner Gillian O’neill are all in it together. The four of us just decided to do it after some very quick conversations and it’s led to something very special that I don’t think Dunfermline has got.

“It’s the first time any of us have done this. We’ve never had experience of owning a bar, though my husband has worked in bars before.

“He got furloughed last year and I’m a full-time teacher. Darren also owns his own business and Gillian works in schools as

well. So it’s either brave or stupid, I can’t decide which one it is!”

Rachel says locals have been missing the drinks and food offered by the venue’s former name, The Watering Hole, which the team are not associated with despite opening up The Haberdashery in the same building.

Rachel added:

“The

venue used to be called The Watering Hole, which I think closed around 2016.

“I moved through to Dunfermline at that time so I never remember it being open but anyone you speak to locally talks about it being one of the first places they went to when they were younger and got a cheap drink from.

“I keep having to tell people it’s not going to be like the old place was before, it’s now totally different.

“I didn’t know it had a big beer garden until we came to view it.

“We’d actually looked at another venue before we took this one and it just didn’t fit with what we were trying to do.”

TEAM: Rachel Christie and three friends have opened a bar. Picture by Steve Brown.