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Some of you will recognise the name, James Olpin is the son of Terry Olpin, who is probably your landlord (if you're a student). He and a few friends (Joby and Molly)have just opened Bristol's 'hottest' new watering hole. Despite being under a year old, the place has already become something of a landmark for out-and-about young people in Bristol. US went to speak to them about the new bar, the difficulties of starting up your first business and the state of Bristol night life...
US: I heard "on the grapevine" that this bar was a present to you from your dad, is there any truth in that? Or is it just jealousy?
James: (laughs) Well, not really a present. My old man is in property, and him and a builder friend of his went halves on buying the place. And yes, it was to give me a start really, but it wasn't a freebie.
US: Was it something you'd wanted to do for a long time?
James: Yeah, I was looking at a place on Park street a few years ago, but it fell through. My idea was to fill a gap, there wasn't really a Bristol equivalent of the Soho style trendy-bar with a late license, so that's what we're aiming for. It's all chain pubs round here.
US: Who do you think is your main competition in Bristol then?
James: We haven't really got any to tell the truth. The E-Shed is quite close, same sort of clientele. But you get more townies down there. We tend to get more passing trade, and because of the way the place looks, Townies tend to think it's another gay bar.
US: Does that bother you?
James: No, there's the Queen Shilling down the road, and the (other one) up the road, so we actually do get quite a few gay couples stopping to check it out. They're good customers, you get two professional men, a lot of money to spend and not up for a fight? ideal really.
US: It must be easy to pull owning a bar?
Joby: Well we've both got girlfreinds, unfortunately, so the official answer is 'I haven't noticed!' Actually I should have said fortunately we've got girlfreinds!!! The barmen seem to do alright though, it hasn't really worked out how we planned -on that front- to tell the truth.
US: How much experience had you all had before you started this.
James: Molly and Joby came from Browns, they worked together there for a couple of years, I came from doing a few pub jobs all over the place and drinking heavily!
US: Why are there so many new bars opening in Bristol?
James: Well, it's just a natural thing really, a lot of people are bored with clubs. That can be an age thing, like nobody who used to go out raving in fields back in the early 90s wants to repeat that experience in a club. Or if they do, they don't want to go till much later. So instead of starting at 7 and downing pints, then spilling out onto the street and fighting, you can come at say 10 and take your time, stay all night.
US: Have you had much 'spilling out and fighting' since you started?
James: There was one incident, which got blown out of all proportion. An asian friend of mine got drunk in here with his brother, and then left. Then he got glassed by 8 skinheads down the road, outside The Hatchet. The Evening Post published a story saying "Victim of race attack" with a picture of this place, no mention of The Hatchet. It was just shit reporting at the end of the day. They'd asked a few tims if I'd advertise with them, but I said we weren't ready yet, I think they just wanted to get the place in their paper basically. Their restaurant critic apologised though, and he gave us a pretty good review.
US: What's you're 'big vision' for Bristol nightlife then?
James: I could see us and the new club down the road teaming up. They've got a license till 4 and till 6 once a month. So we could do some pre-club stuff with them. They want to get big name DJs in, and were offering to take them in, feed them upstairs, and they could spin some tunes downstairs before going on to (The club) later. They'd have to play different stuff though.
US: Do you think people enjoy themselves more if there is a dj there?
James: Oh yeah! It's always better if you've got a dj there. Saying that gets me in trouble though, I've got DJs coming out of my ears at the moment, wanting to play here. We try to alternate them fortnightly.
US: Who designed the place?
Molly: A friend of mine, Esmee Lynch whose an interior designer. She's actually moved to Brighton now, but she did the E-shed and another place in town. She's pretty good, when we bought the place it was real state, they had to do a lot of work, but as soon as she came on board I knew it would work out.
US: Was it scary seeing how much time and money was going into it?
James: Yeah, totally. And at first it was a real nightmare, trying to decide between just bottles-and-cocktails or having draught beers as well. When we had draught (which is what we'd always wanted) you were getting 5 people coming in at 11 and sitting round a jug all night, then by 12 they've fallen off their chairs. That's not what we're about. And in the summer when there's less students about, it is quite scary because that is a naturally lean time for restaurants. As of August/September, we'll have a cocktail barman too. I'd rather have people who weren't coming here to get shit faced, or if they are, they'll have to be prepared to spend lots of money.
US: So no students then?
James: Well, there's 70,000 students in Bristol, so that would be silly, but on the whole we don't target them no. We get them coming in, but only some fit our criteria for customers, you get real skint students and you get rich ones, basically?
US: What's been the best moment so far?
James: When we opened, for the first few weeks it was people queuing from 9 till 1, and we shut the door at 1:30! We thought we weren't going to be able to cope with the demand!