News / Restaurants
EXCLUSIVE: One of Bristol’s oldest restaurants to close
Since 1986, it has been a Bristol institution – where long lunches were enjoyed on expense accounts and business deals agreed after another bottle of wine ordered.
But the times have caught up with Glassboat, with owners using its enforced closure during the coronavirus pandemic to give it a change of focus.
When the former barge reopens on Welsh Back, it will be called Fish and be a fish and chip restaurant.
is needed now More than ever
Bristol24/7 understands that Fish will be a much more relaxed affair than the fine dining at Glassboat, with an initial emphasis on takeaway meals.
The change follows its sister restaurant Spyglass, which morphed from seasonal cooking and seasonal opening hours into burger restaurant Three Brothers.
Inside Glassboat’s dining room in May 2019 – photo by Martin Booth
If its owner Arne Ringner had got his way, Glassboat could have been a floating botanical garden.
But after Bristol’s planners turned down that original idea, the barge became a restaurant with floors from the recently defunct Courage Brewery in what is now Finzels Reach, the solid marble bar from the old St Nicholas Fish Market and the portholes from a cross-channel ferry.
Other fittings came from a former police station, Avonmouth flour mills and the former Western Daily Press offices on Silver Street.
“The late 80s was the heyday for the financial services industry,” recalls Ringner, also the owner of the Lido, in the Glassboat’s official history.
“Stockbrokers and accountants moved in droves from London to cheaper, more attractive Bristol, where they kept up their tradition of long lunches. Glassboat was awash with pinstripe and backslapping.”
Work is currently underway to transform Glassboat into Fish – photo by Martin Booth
Main photo by Martin Booth
Read more: EXCLUSIVE: New owners promise to bring historic Bristol pub ‘back to life’
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