Bar Moves Out Of Broad Street And Opens In Gay Village – Todayuknews – Todayuknews
Oompah, oompah! After waving goodbye to Broad Street, the Bavarian-style Bierkeller name is bouncing back in Brum.
A new site is set to open inside a former garage close to the back of Birmingham Hippodrome – and just in time for the Pride festival weekend which begins on Friday, September 24.
Sports bar Shooters Rack ‘n’ Roll will replace the former Rileys snooker centre at ground level on Inge Street, while the new Bierkeller will be upstairs above Essex Street.
The two venues will have a capacity of around 400 people between them – a far cry from Broad Street’s former 1,500 capacity, three-in-one venue which cost £2.4 million to open less than five years ago.
Covid passport rules for the NEC, O2 Academy and other Birmingham venues
The new Essex Street site will not have an Around The World family bar and lounge like there was at the former site on Broad Street which missed out on Euro 2020.
The Leeds-based company behind that December 2016 venture went into administration in 2018 and was wound up last year.
But the intellectual property rights of the Bierkeller and Shooters brands are being brought back to hospitality life.
Steve Thick, director of Leeds-based Bierkeller Assets Ltd, said he used to work for Rileys prior to itself going into administration in 2020 and thought Bierkeller still had great potential in a more suitable location.
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
Mr Thick said Shooters Birmingham Ltd had bought the lease for Essex Street.
During the new fit-out, it was preserving some of the building’s heritage features from the days when it was a garage run by RJ Evans & Kitchen Ltd – a forerunner of the Evans Halshaw empire.
Other Bierkellers will run in Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester.
Southside BID manager Julia Robinson said she was ‘delighted’ at Bierkeller’s change of address and predicted that it would be a great addition to the increasingly diverse area.
Julia said: “Bierkeller will provide good times and add to the mix of having a great concentration of brilliant places to go in areas that are all just a few streets from each other.
“We’ve already got Chinese, Japanese, Greek and Korean restaurants and so on in the area, now we’re going German, too!”
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
Two-in-one
The combination of Bierkeller and Shooters will offer two venues in one.
The former will be a ‘Bavarian-style bar famous for its weekly foot-stomping comedy Oompah shows and Steins of fun’.
Shooters Rack ‘n’ Roll bar is being billed as ‘a sports bar in the true sense, screens pool tables, beer pong and darts under one roof’.
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
The food menu will range from ‘mouth-watering Bavarian Bratwurst and Chicken Schnitzel bites in the Bierkeller to stone-baked pizzas, burgers and chicken wings in Shooters’.
New sales and marketing manager Christina Kruzewski said: “We are very excited to bring Bierkeller to Birmingham’s Southside to provide a unique experience for customers.
“We will partner with surrounding businesses and become an intrinsic part of this vibrant district.”
Although the site was still being fitted out, staff training would begin next week.
(Image: Courtesy of Bierkeller)
Seven former Rileys’ employees have been retained with 20 new staff already hired with the potential for ten to 15 more including part-time roles.
Rileys’ existing 24-hour licence will not be needed as Bierkeller will typically operate from 8pm to 2am with Shooters likely to operate from late morning til midnight.
Mr Thick said he had acquired the tables used for the Broad Street Bierkeller as well as the big screen at Shooters that would now be used as a sidewall backdrop for atmosphere and not as a main viewing screen.
Rileys’ snooker tables had been removed, but its pool tables would be part of the brighter Shooters’ offer.
Although leisure industry fitters were still on site, the venues would have a “soft opening” weekend next week before opening on Friday, September 24 with parties bookable online for the Octoberfest and pre Christmas periods.
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
BID backing for switch
Southside’s entertainment slate combines Chinatown with Theatreland and the Gay Village which are all centred on or around Hurst Street.
The new Bierkeller site is also just on the other side of Horsefair / Bristol Street to the O2 Academy (formerly The Dome nightclub ) while the other end of Inge Street is home to what is frequently rated as Birmingham’s No 1 tourist attraction, The National Trust’s Back to Backs
Southside BID manager Julia Robinson said: “You can have all of the Zoom meetings in the world and online shopping experiences, but you can’t replicate a great social experience online.
“You can’t get good times delivered – Bierkeller will provide the good times.”
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
The Southside area had been fully open for business for more than two months now and Julia said the willingness of people to come back out despite understandable nervousness was “great to see.”
While hospitality still faced many teething and staffing issues in the post-Brexit world of Covid, she added: “People can come out to Southside at 5pm and still be here having a great time at 5am the following morning, that’s what we’re all about.
“It’s hard enough getting into the city as it is now the way it’s been broken up into segments, so once people are here they just want to have fun and there’s never a dull moment here.
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
“The site is a former Evans Halshaw garage and Shooters is going into the former Rileys snooker club on Inge Street.
“It will also be opposite a new entrance opening at the side of the Birmingham Hippodrome theatre so that everyone going there will see Bierkeller and Shooters when they arrive and leave.
“The impact of the Hippodrome reopening recently on all of the other businesses around here has been tremendous.
“Southside itself has been back open itself for the past nine weeks and every weekend has been like New Year’s Eve it’s been so busy.
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“Some people are still understandably nervous about going out again, but for hospitality businesses which need a lifeline it’s been great to see our customers returning in big numbers.
“For every £1 spent on the arts in the city, it brings back £4 to the wider economy.”
Although Bierkeller’s move is Southside’s gain and possibly Westside’s loss given its previous owner’s original ambition to “make Broad Street lively again”, Julia stressed the two business districts were complementary, not adversarial.
“We are not in competition with Westside,” she said. “We are brothers and sisters. Their offer is fantastic as well and great for Birmingham which can facilitate both areas.
“There is huge demand for good quality social experiences after everyone has been more or less locked up for 18 months.
“And we think it’s safer for people to come out to our venues where staff are properly trained and Covid measures are in place than to have a party at home.
“Businesses need supporting so much, but it’s great to see the smiles and relief on people’s faces now that they are able to pay their rent despite running up massive amounts of debt.
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
“At the moment, demand is such it really does look as if there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Westside BID is expecting a massive increase in business once West Midlands Metro trams start to run up to 54 Hagley Road in December.
Work to get the line there from Stephenson Street in Grand Central began more than four years ago on June 12, 2017 – six months after the original Bierkeller opened.
But, for now, the former Brannigans site remains empty again.
“It just wasn’t the right address for Bierkeller,” said Mr Thick.
(Image: Graham Young / BirminghamLive)
Bierkeller bounces back
When Bierkeller first opened on Broad Street on December 9, 2016, it was a three-in-one destination with attractions including Around the World Bar & Lounge below Shooters sports bar which claimed to have the biggest non-cinema screen in the city.
At the time, Burning Night Group CEO Allan Harper said: “We spent two years searching for just the right site to accommodate what we do – large entertainment complexes offering something for everyone.
“We were keen to find a super-prime location to allow us to be at the centre of the city’s fantastic nightlife and Broad Street, which attracts 23 million visitors every year, fits that perfectly.”
The company went into administration in 2018 before being wound up last year.
In the meantime, established Broad Street hospitality businesses including Pryzm nightclub and Cineworld multiplex cinema, have had to cope with the impact of Covid and work to build the West Midlands Metro’s Westside Phase 2 tram track which should be in service before Christmas.
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