Glasgow city centre cafe plans to serve coffee until 4am

A cafe near Glasgow’s Central Station is planning to open until 4am — but won’t serve from its cocktail menu.

Sexy Coffee on Union Street wants to operate “into the wee hours”, primarily at weekends.

Glasgow’s licensing board has approved changes to the cafe’s premises licence to allow the later opening.

The venue will also need to secure a late hours catering licence from the council.

Licensing lawyer Stephen McGowan, representing the firm, said the application was to operate after the “terminal licensed hour on an unlicensed basis”.

He said Sexy Coffee would serve “teas, coffees, soft drinks, a sandwich, paninis, whatever it might be” until 4am “probably primarily” at weekends.

The café is licensed to sell beers, wines and cocktails earlier in the evening. Mr McGowan said: “It is an unusual application I suppose as it’s got nothing to do with the sale of alcohol.”

However, he added: “I don’t suppose it’s overly novel in the sense there are a number of sit-in restaurants that… trade under late hours catering licence.

“There are many restaurants, fast food and otherwise, that do trade with later hours catering and do allow their customers to sit in until 4 or 5am.”

He was joined at the licensing board hearing by Simone Varese, whose family, alongside Sexy Coffee, also run the Blue Lagoon fish and chips chain.

Mr McGowan said: “This is a family that might well be just about the most experienced operators of late hours catering licences in the city.

“Simone’s dad Angelo was granted the first-ever late hours catering licence under the 1982 legislation. It is a family with a pedigree of knowing how to operate unlicensed venues into the early hours of the morning.”