Sip and Solve Puzzle bar opens in Portsmouth

The News, Portsmouth

Sip and Solve puzzle bar opens in Portsmouth.

Transcript

00:00Hello, my name is Gareth Beeson and I'm the owner of Sip & Solve.

00:03Brilliant, so tell me whereabouts we are in Portsmouth.

00:06So we're at a puzzle bar in Portsmouth called Sip & Solve

00:10at the top end of Commercial Road right next to Otherworld Escapes escape rooms.

00:15Brilliant, tell me how long you've been open and how long it's

00:19kind of taken and what's gone into getting a bar like this open.

00:23Okay, so yeah we've been open since early August

00:27this year. So far it's been going really really well

00:31and lots of people have been coming in to play and

00:34it's been really incredibly received like all the games are well loved.

00:39In terms of TripAdvisor we're knocking it out of the park in terms of the

00:42reviews like people are loving it and we get a lot of exclusive bookings

00:46as well for Christmas parties so people are really enjoying that as an

00:50alternative Christmas party which we're really finding great.

00:54In terms of how long it took and the effort that's been involved in terms of

00:58setting up, so my business partner created this

01:02wonderful design of the bar with all these wonderful kind of spray paint

01:06sort of graffiti style designs in it and using loads of recycled materials and

01:10things like that and that was a like a passion project

01:13during lockdown and then since then I kind of approached

01:17him and said I can build some games in there

01:19and we can have a sort of a re-jig of things and

01:25introduce a new concept basically which I believe doesn't exist anywhere else in

01:29the UK. So we got together and started building

01:32these puzzle pods which I believe I don't think anywhere else has puzzle

01:36pods. So we've built six puzzle pod games

01:40each of different themes and it's taken us

01:44in between getting all the administration and all the licensing and

01:47everything sorted, it's taken us somewhere about like nine

01:50months to get everything off the ground after the kind of the

01:54bar element was was set up. Brilliant, so tell me why you

01:58wanted to do something like this, I know you've just touched upon it but

02:01yeah. Yeah, so I own Otherworld Escapes escape rooms as well

02:06and I noticed a bit of a gap in the market with regards to large bookings

02:10so stag dos, hen dos, corporate parties, if there was like 30 people they would

02:16come in and want to do a social occasion together

02:19but they found that they would come to the escape room and then they would

02:23divide into separate games so it's almost like they only get to

02:27team build with their team that they're in.

02:30So I realised why not have games in a bit more of an open space

02:35and have a bar to support that as well and it just so happened that

02:39my business partner was operating this bar next door and

02:43I thought that's a perfect opportunity to go with that.

02:47So then I said okay we can make these mini versions,

02:50so it's a bit more for casual players so people can come in try what an escape

02:55room is like and then maybe go and play a full escape

02:57room if that's something they want to do

02:59but it works much better for large bookings of up to 40 people all in one

03:04go and then they can play as many games as

03:07they like.

03:10So yeah at Separate and Solve we can do

03:13lots of like package deals as well where we can include

03:16homemade birthday cakes and you know wedding cakes and things like that as

03:20well as having bubbly champagne and

03:24prosecco and things like that. We also design our own signature

03:28cocktails which are designed based on the themes of the games

03:31as well and they're all handcrafted by our bar manager here

03:35so they're hand designed with some really

03:39interesting theatrical effects so we can do

03:42akin to the games we can do lots of things with the bar element too.

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