New All Bar One to open at Glasgow Central station next year

A new All Bar One is set to open in Glasgow’s Central Station in August, after a licence to sell alcohol was granted.

Hospitality firm Mitchells & Butlers want to reopen a currently empty unit above M&S Simply Food as the city’s second All Bar One venue.

Council planners are currently considering an application to convert the unit — and the licensing board has now given permission for alcohol to be sold from the site.

Licensing lawyer Audrey Junner, representing the firm, said the unit, previously Central Bar, has been closed since 2016 and her clients want to bring “new life” into the space.

She said: “All going well they are scheduled to start work in April next year and I believe the launch is planned for August time if that all goes to plan.

“The station is undergoing refurbishment at the moment, there are a lot of closed units. That will change as the development happens at the station, and this will be a valuable addition to that.”

Mitchells & Butlers are “trying to enhance the user experience within the station”, she added.

Councillors on the city’s licensing board approved the firm’s provisional premises licence.

Ms Junner said All Bar One is “one of the most popular of Mitchell & Butlers brands”, adding: “They already operate one at St Vincent Street but this will be a much smaller unit.”

Plans for the new venue were recently submitted to the council and come after a previous proposal for a Wetherspoons in the unit were dropped.

The application states there would be a “similar fit out” to the approved Wetherspoons project, when the council had concluded the works would “not detract from the historic character of the building and will not be detrimental to its appearance”.

It also revealed Mitchells & Butlers is leasing the unit from Network Rail and proposes “minor, non-structural alterations” inside and new lighting at the main entrance.