Peter McKenna from Glasgow’s Gannet in the changing face of Finnieston

National World - LocalTV

Finnieston is renowned across the city for it’s lively fine dining restaurant scene but this is a rather new phenomenon,

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00:00Peter, tell me about how you ended up working in Finistoun and living in the West End.

00:09How did this end up in your neighbourhood?

00:12It's quite a funny story.

00:14I was working in the city centre on Bass Street in the now closed Abode Hotel, a fantastic

00:21restaurant.

00:22I met my business partner there and we would come to the Crab Shack here in Finistoun.

00:28At the time, and still now, it was one of the leading restaurants in the city.

00:32We got to know John, a fantastic guy, and he put us on to a derelict unit across the

00:38road.

00:39At the time, the city was completely different.

00:42The Kelvin Grove Cafe there now, an institution, it wasn't there, it was derelict as well.

00:47This whole strip just had the Ben Nevis on it we're sitting in today.

00:51One of my favourite bars.

00:54What did you see in Finistoun at that time?

00:56Potential?

00:57Potential.

00:58There was loads of potential, bags of potential, but I must say, I was a little bit ignorant.

01:03I had the blinkers on.

01:05As a chef, I was just focused on food, food, food.

01:07I wasn't looking at the wider context of the city.

01:11I didn't even know about the Hydro opening.

01:14That was a funny one because everybody said to us, we opened maybe weeks, maybe a month,

01:19I don't know, I think it was weeks, before the Hydro opened, and people were like, oh,

01:26you got in there just before the Hydro.

01:28I didn't even know.

01:30I love music.

01:31Glasgow, one of the biggest draws for me in Glasgow is the music scene.

01:35Fantastic music scene, and it always has done.

01:38You go way back, going to the 70s, Glasgow has been a prominent music city.

01:43Being Irish, love the music, love the crack, love the bars.

01:47So we'd go to the Crab Shack, we'd go across the road, we'd come here to Ben Nevis, and

01:52sometimes John from the Crab Shack would join us.

01:55He told us about the landlord that had the buildings next door, and he actually vouched

02:01for us, because we didn't have any pedigree of running restaurants.

02:07We weren't restaurateurs, we were chefs.

02:10John put his neck on the line and said, these are good guys, and I always respect him for that.

02:16What about the changes that you've seen since you've opened to Gannet, and what Finiston's become?

02:22Tell me about Finiston right now, I suppose.

02:25Well, Finiston now, it's polar opposite of what it was back then.

02:31You're talking, it took us two years to open to Gannet, you're talking 12, 13 years ago.

02:36There was a handful of places, but there was nothing like it is now, there was no trendy

02:41cocktail bars, there was no trendy bars.

02:43It was a good bar that sold amazing Guinness and sold amazing whiskey, which would draw

02:49for me.

02:50The triangle of the Islander pubs, which I also loved, because you get the live music

02:55and you get the crack in there.

02:58But yeah, the whole fancy restaurant scene, it wasn't here then.

03:03The Crab Shack, it was this kind of jewel in the crown of Finiston at the time.

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