Story behind Corner Shop, the newest wine bar to arrive in Glasgow’s West End

National World - LocalTV

We visit Corner Shop in the West End to try out their Catalan-inspired food menu and extensive wine list.

Transcript

00:00I guess I should do it a bit more natural than that.

00:01I'm Connor, part owner of Corner Shop in Glasgow.

00:04Corner Shop is a wine bar restaurant which has become more of a restaurant than wine bar.

00:11The idea was to have a place with a really fluid and seasonal ever-changing wine list

00:19that was both interesting but accessible to people.

00:24And we knew that we wanted to have a food offering with it

00:27but the more that we looked into the menu side of things and started to put a team together

00:33we got a very, very strong team with Alex as our head chef.

00:37The more that we looked at the menu, we realised this really has to be a big driving force

00:44behind what we're doing because we're either a wine bar that does plates of cheese,

00:49charcuterie and things like that, or we invest heavily in a kitchen in a really strong team

00:55and we make it more food focused.

00:57So it ended up becoming a bit more food focused than what we had originally planned.

01:01I've always kind of worked in hospitality starting when I was like 16, 17, 17 when I left school.

01:08And I went straight into kitchens and I started at Orrham Moore when it first opened.

01:13And I kind of worked as a KP, became a chef there.

01:17Went to college, trained as a chef and worked in like numinous kitchens after that.

01:22I had worked in Strevegan, Ubiquitous Chip, Devonshire Gardens, a few others.

01:27Kind of slowly moved into front of house.

01:30Went to uni but always like worked in restaurants at the same time.

01:35So I always kind of had it in my head that that's what I wanted to do

01:37but the big change came when I went to work at the Gannet.

01:39I was like the assistant manager there, became the restaurant manager

01:42and then took over the wines and that's what really started my wine journey.

01:46I would say that's when I started to do like my WSET exams and things like that.

01:50So I was at the Gannet for like four and a half years.

01:52Following that, Barbaret, then more recently was part of the opening team for Fallican Dining.

01:58But the opportunity to do this came up when my friend Matthew, who owns Grain & Grind Coffee,

02:02decided he wanted to do something else with this unit.

02:05So he was like, I'm thinking of selling it, do you want to buy it?

02:08I had a chat with him and was like, I can't really afford to like buy this off you.

02:12But why don't we go into business together?

02:14We had a couple of chats and it just turned out we were both really on the same page

02:18and then, okay, what sort of food do you like?

02:20Well, he goes to the south of France a lot.

02:22I go to the south of France like round about Perpignan and I go to Barcelona a lot.

02:26So there's that kind of Catalan influence in both parts of those countries there.

02:31When we got Alex on board, he spends a lot of time in Spain where his dad is

02:35and he's holidaying in Spain and Barcelona and Malaga.

02:39So yeah, we were just like, okay, let's just do like really cool sort of tapas, Basque Catalan food.

02:44And that's how we came up with Corner Shop.

02:46The name, obviously it used to be, before it was Grain & Grind,

02:49it was always in this neighbourhood of York Hill.

02:51It's been for as far back as we can see a newsagents, a corner shop.

02:55So picking a name is really hard.

02:57No one could agree on anything until we said corner shop.

03:00We were like, okay, we can at least agree on that.

03:02Yeah, when I told my dad that the location was on Old Dumbarton Road right across from Duke's,

03:07he was like, oh, that's amazing because there's like such a connection to that street.

03:10Duke's Bar has a lot of sentimental meaning.

03:12It's not only like where we hang out most nights.

03:15My dad worked there in the 80s.

03:17So like famously the Clash on their busking tour turned up

03:20and one of the places they played in Glasgow was Duke's Bar.

03:23My dad was working in the bar that night.

03:24I was born in York Hill Hospital.

03:26My dad was still working there at the time.

03:27So it was the first place that I was taken after being born.

03:30And York Hill Hospital was like popping into Duke's Bar

03:33where I saw like my mum and dad's friends.

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