The Merchant , Glasgow

The Merchant has seating front left and then an L-shaped bar runs up the left wall facing booth seating that backs onto a raised seating area that runs down the right-hand windows. In the front right stairs lead up to the first floor, but this was roped off during a recent midweek evening visit. Televisions are located throughout for showing live sports. The bar supports standard, premium and craft keg, but three of the four hand pumps were unused. Loch Leven’s Warrior Queen was the cask option. Food is available, the burgers start at £10. Worth a look.

A large and prominent corner pub located on a main road and just a short stroll from the main shopping area, it looks quite traditional in many ways but also seems to have something of a sports focus with numerous TV screens and prominent promotional material for the current Six Nations tournament. Inside it’s all one large open plan room, and is in many ways quite elegant with dark wood panelling taking up much of the walls, tartan carpet on the floor and some ornate cornice work on the ceiling. Large windows made the most of the outlook and also included some sections of stained glass along the top. An attractive staircase was in one corner that presumably led to more of a restaurant area. So far, so good. In complete contrast to all this though was the plethora of TV screens and projectors (I counted at least 13) showing sports channels. This really seemed to jar with the style of the pub I thought. Staff seemed friendly enough, although service at the bar was rather slow with the lone barman taking rather a long time to rustle up a jug of cocktails whilst everyone else had to wait. The menu looked to be a mass produced laminated affair, and included various sections such as burgers and pub classics. I opted for the Hunters Chicken Pie and this was served with mash and vegetables. If I were being critical I’d say the mash was a bit stodgy and the pastry a bit thick, but overall it wasn’t a bad effort and I quite enjoyed it. Beers on tap were Pivo Estivo and Red Smiddy from Kilburn, Strathaven Duchess Anne and Doom Bar. The ciders were just Strongbow and Strongbow Dark Fruit, unfortunately. Overall, not a bad pub, but the rather overbearing sports emphasis and poor cider choice rather spoilt it for me.

Very nice old Victorian building only marginally messed about with. Decor and furnishings in keeping with the style. Three pumps of Scottish cask, Kelburn and Strathaven and a veritable forest of keggery. More screens than you can shake a stick at, fitba on the two channels being shown. Apparently shows NFL. A couple of slot machines too. Bouncers on the door and full of Glaswegians of all sorts on my Saturday evening visit. Beer was fine in spite of being served in a bloody handle glass, the barmaid was young & Polish so probably hasn’t seen Get Carter.