The Glassworks

Any info on this one, Freddiel: If M & S are going in to the Glassworks does that mean they have shelved the plans for a food outlet at Peel Retail Park? Ta.

 

They aren’t going in The Glassworks as far as I’m aware. They’re aiming to get Peel Centre open by November.

 

Cheers Fred! Thought I'd seen a report to that effect somewhere. Maybe I misunderstood it.

 

Any news on what happened to Boom Battle Bar mate? Presumably that particular dream is dead?

 

It’s a shame they aren’t, but they’ve probably got a brilliant deal down there. Those units have been empty for quite some time. At least one positive of being on the retail park is that they’ll probably open til 8pm. They’re painting the bricks black and replacing the purple cladding with white on their unit so it’ll look much better than it does now, although the plans show they’re only doing half the wall that meets Pets at home so that’ll probably look a bit daft. They should’ve just done the whole thing!

 

Are you part of Glassworks/town planning mate or do you just do your own research?

 

Still showing in legals, and a recent report suggests the whole scheme is 90% let, but unclear how that is calculated. E.g is it 90% of units or 90% of floor space? The leasing plan on the website is out of date too. Either way, for the scheme to be that full you’d assume they’re including that unit as it’s fairly big. It does seem odd that nothing has happened though. They applied for a licence in early 2022!

I think they can be franchised, so it could be an issue with that, but the owner of the business (XP Factory) don’t have much info out there so it’s difficult to find out.

 

I don’t work for the council. I do have contacts in a number of areas within and outside of the council, but quite often (rather sadly) I look at planning applications and other council documents to work out what’s going on.

 

A spinach burger does not appeal to me. With or without olive.

 

And the award for best Dad joke of the day goes to….

 

Thanks for that. I recently went to the one in Leeds and it was great! The town centre would definitely benefit from that type of bar. There's the Works which has just recently reopened as that type of bar, and that's great albeit on a much smaller scale to what Boom Battle Bar typically is like.

 

Definitely. TBH I think they missed a trick with the bowling given we already have Barnsley Bowl and Metrodome Bowl. A Lane 7/Roxy type venue would’ve probably been better. Fingers crossed Boom Battle Bar does still go ahead.

The Works opened a while ago. It initially opened as a paid members only bar (not sure Barnsley has the same clientele as Soho House for that format to work here). It obviously didn’t do very well so they’ve just rebranded it and promoted it as a brand new bar. Admittedly a lot of people didn’t know it was there, so I guess they’ve got the marketing right.

 

Yeah I had no idea it was there. Me and my brother spotted it before the Morecambe game and went in for a game of darts before the match. One of my mates said at the game it'd been open a while, but had been relaunched just that weekend.

 

I believe it’s the same owner as Cucina and Black & White. They did also have The Salt House, but they’ve been trying to sell that one so unsure if that’s still theirs.

 

There is one in the Derbion centre in Derby. Went there a couple of months ago. I believe there are a few others, but it looks like they are expanding rapidly in the footsteps of Taco Bell and GDK.

 

Rotherham (Parkgate) is their first drive thru in the UK. They’re definitely expanding rapidly. Seems to be a similar scale to Tim Horton’s.

 

There is even a Wendy's down Fargate now. Lots of choice in American food

 

The Works seem to shut pretty quickly but I’ve noticed stickers on the windows indicating games or something

 

It's recently had a relaunch and reopened as a 'games' type bar with darts, pool and shuffleboard.