A look inside Ripper & Co in Southsea

The News, Portsmouth

04/08/2023

New bar, Ripper & Co open in Southsea

Transcript

00:00 He has seen empires rise and fall.

00:03 He possesses a wisdom of the ages.

00:08 Throughout eternity,

00:18 no man has ever provoked such terrible fear and such haunting desire.

00:25 So I'm Naz, I'm the Assistive General Manager here

00:29 of Riffo & Co.

00:30 What we do here is we give a relaxed environment

00:34 of horror fanatics and thrill-seekers

00:37 and get them to enjoy our really good food and our bespoke cocktails,

00:41 but in a nice, calm and relaxed way.

00:43 Tell us about the inspiration behind it and some of the other things around.

00:47 Yeah. So the owner absolutely adores horror movies.

00:51 He wanted to bring his vision to life and I think he nailed it in a perfect way.

00:56 We obviously, as much as we wanted it to be a full-on immersive experience,

01:00 we didn't want people jumping out and scaring you whilst you're eating food.

01:03 Gosh, I can't imagine that. Plates flying everywhere, food flying everywhere.

01:07 So we kept it a little bit more of a relaxed, Victorian, speakeasy type theme.

01:11 It gives it a lot, like, a nicer, lush, more quiet feeling

01:16 and you feel a lot more, like, at ease.

01:18 So you don't anticipate someone else, like, screaming at you or anything like that.

01:22 I feel like with the environment being like this,

01:25 it allows you to actually hold a conversation,

01:29 take in all your surroundings, all the artwork around,

01:31 which you'll, like, see later on, is, like, beautiful.

01:34 Like, all the little intricate details, I feel like we nailed that perfectly here.

01:38 So tell us something about the art, because even the art is quite striking.

01:43 Yeah. So we had a bunch of stuff commissioned and they're hand-drawn,

01:48 which I find absolutely insane.

01:50 I keep looking at the pictures and I'm thinking, "That is not hand-drawn.

01:53 That is 100% a picture from Google," but it's all authentic

01:56 and it just gives it a little bit more of an intricate feel to the place.

02:00 Definitely. And so tell us, in regards of the vibe,

02:04 what are people expected to see when they walk through these doors?

02:07 So I think, at first, a lot of people hear that it's a horror bar

02:12 and they just assume, "Oh, my gosh, it's going to be quite scary,"

02:15 or, like, you know, "There's a lot going on."

02:17 But honestly, when you walk through, like I mentioned before,

02:19 it is very nice and chill in here.

02:22 You are able to enjoy the food and the drinks at ease

02:26 and you're able to see the bartenders do their little flares

02:30 and it just makes it a lot more fun.

02:32 There's a lot of interactive drinks where you feel like you're really getting involved

02:37 and you're making your own potions and you're brewing it and stuff like that,

02:40 but you can still hear the music, which is very theatrical.

02:44 So every time we have a certain share that comes up,

02:47 it's named after a certain movie.

02:49 I don't want to give too much away. You've got to come here to see it.

02:52 But it's named after a certain movie and it's got the same type of details from that.

02:57 So we flicker the lights, make it a little bit more dramatic,

03:01 flicker the lights, make it seem like everyone's looking around,

03:03 wondering what's going on, and then you bring the share out through it

03:06 and everyone's just amazed by it all.

03:09 So we're very theatrical here. We're very dramatic people.

03:12 We like to get people all confused and surprised by what we bring out.

03:17 Does that come from a particular background of theatre or anything like that?

03:20 Well, I did study drama, so personally for me, this is perfect. I love it.

03:26 The owner loves bringing something new to the place.

03:29 I feel like Portsmouth does lack with a lot of immersive-type, dramatic experiences.

03:36 So with his previous place and this place,

03:38 we like to just make it a little bit more homey, I guess.

03:42 Get people to feel a little bit more special, don't they?

03:46 And obviously, leading up to before you've been opening up,

03:50 there was a lot of controversy and a lot of backlash.

03:52 How did you guys deal with it and what was your response to that criticism?

03:58 So, I understand the controversy.

04:02 It is quite difficult because a lot of people always have their opinions.

04:05 And that's fine. We respect all of that.

04:08 It's sometimes difficult to get your point across

04:10 when someone's got something in their head.

04:12 You don't want to tell them they're wrong or anything like that.

04:15 But I understand the way some people might be feeling.

04:19 But honestly, if there's people out there listening to this,

04:22 I'd say, "Come on in. Just give it a try."

04:25 It is very 360 to whatever you have inside your head.

04:28 This place is not a bad place.

04:31 It's a wonderful place where you can literally enjoy so much.

04:35 And I feel like you need to really come in here to actually understand that.

04:40 There's so many cocktails to offer.

04:44 We do classic cocktails around the world.

04:47 We do our little twists on it that myself and a bunch of the bartenders here

04:50 worked really hard on.

04:51 We want to show you guys that this place is more than its name.

04:54 - It's a lot more. - It's not centralised on just that?

04:57 No, it's not. Not at all.

04:59 We've even got, if you walk around, which you can share later,

05:04 we've got a little tribute to a guy named Michael Ripper.

05:08 He was an actor based here in Portsmouth.

05:11 And his surname's Ripper.

05:13 So that shocked a lot of people when we did a little post out about it

05:16 because they were really taken aback.

05:18 They were like, "What? We don't know this."

05:20 But it's just like, we wouldn't have had to explain that

05:23 had it not become such a massive controversy, I guess.

05:27 But yeah.

05:28 [AUDIO OUT]

A look inside Ripper & Co in Southsea

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