Saturday's Glasgow Herald newspaper had an item about a Coffee Festival being on Saturday and Sunday in the Briggait, city centre. This is my report (as I no longer use Trip Advisor): Zero out of Ten.
The newspaper article on page 3, Saturday May 6th stated Tickets £14.50 per day and the website reference was www.eventbrite.co.uk.
Mairi and Ishie (aged 10) and I arrived at the big glass entrance door of the Briggait. Immediately upon entering there was a table with 2 young lassies standing behind it. "No we do not take cash. We are not allowed to." "What you have to do is download the app [Eventbrite] on to your mobile phone, and once you set it up you buy your ticket using the link."
"You do it." sez I... which she proceeded to do on my iPhone. When we got to the point of (a) entering you bank details to set up payment [remember we are still standing at the door!]... and (b) she says "There will be a £1.50 booking fee for every ticket. Mairi and I looked at each other and said "Eh????!!!! .... No." ... and left.
You couldn't make it up!
Meanwhile ... still being fairly early, i.e. about 10:30 am we were not going to be defeated... so I steered toward to the lovely Russian Cafe called Cossachok Restaurant on King Street. The big glass entrance doors showed a man inside and the left-hand door was propped open. In we sailed with me spouting to this gentleman at the door (and there was a cleaning lady with a mop and pail in an otherwise emtpy room) that we had just come from the Coffee 'Festival' and da dah dee dah dee dah ...where we ended up leaving ... and were in for a coffee.
At which point he stops me in full flow, looking at me sideways saying politely "Uh, lady... we're closed!". Well we laughed and laughed except maybe Ishbel did her best to pretend that she wasn't with us!
Off we went again ... and yes, we got a lovely cup of coffee at Esca around the corner on Chisholm Street. They were open for business, people were there to serve you and the food (bacon on MacKechnie morning rolls) with good coffee was lovely. It was reasonably priced and you guessed it - it's Italian...of course!
When things don't necessarily go to plan we always say "We're on a Magical Mystery Tour" and so, in this case, we 3 headed off to The Barras (open market with stalls in east end of Glasgow). We had a wonderful hour rooting around the junk stalls with nobody at our elbow wanting to go home!
Clutching our treasures we re-traced our route back to the Briggait where we had parked. We stopped outside the pretty pink and white Coffee and Cream cafe across on the Gallowgate just along from the Barras. The place was empty but serving were 2 lassies: ice-cream sundae for Mairi, Slushie for Ishie and I had a cup of coffee. By this time I had quite forgotten about our "Rip Off Great Britain' experience. So imagine my delight when one of the lassies topped off our Coffee Festival trip by offering me 'on the house' a yummy jammy donut!
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