Glasgow is preparing to welcome the city's first pizza and cocktail bar with the arrival of Slice this Monday.
The new food spot is found at Singl-end in the heart of the Merchant City, with a venue share meaning Singl-end's revered brunches will be served up during the day before making way for Slice pizza and cocktails in the evening.
Behind Slice is Marc Frossman, marketing director of The Butterfly and Pig Group, which own the likes of Singl-end and iconic Glasgow nightclubs The Buff Club and The Shed. Inspired by trips to New York and Italy, Marc's idea for Glaswegians' to 'slice up yo life' with pizza and cocktails in the sun got given the go-ahead earlier this year with the city preparing to come out of lockdown and welcome the summer sunshine.
And there you'll be able to order as many slices of fresh pizza as you like for £4 each while enjoying colourful cocktails such as Fruit Pastilles Ice Lolly Crush, Solero Blizzard and of course, Aperol Spritz.
The outdoor space on John Street can hold almost 100 people and Marc hopes the new city centre venue will be the perfect place for Glaswegians to catch up over food and drink after months of lockdown.
He said: "It's a great spot because we've got lots of spaces outside. Singl-end is a brunch place but the venue has the later licence, I've always thought it would be great to open it much later, especially in the summer, especially at the end of lockdown and outdoor space being such a commodity.
"It's pizza by the slice and cocktails outside. There'll be indoors as well, but obviously the big draw, with only being able to drink outside, will be the outside space where we've got almost 100 seats.
"I used to go to on holiday to Italy or New York. In New York, you'd get a dollar slice and at night you'd go out for a cocktail, but it felt like a waste the two weren't combined. So this is pizza by the slice - they can have as many as they want or they can just come for the cocktails if they want to. It's a venue where the food and the drinks are just as important as each other. We wouldn't class it as a restaurant, but a pizza and cocktail bar."
And a big feature of Slice - alongside the pizza and the cocktails - will be the music, creating an atmosphere in which Glaswegians can chill out in the sunshine.
Marc added: "Obviously the company has nightclubs as well - we've got the Buff Club where we do a lot of soul, funk and disco nights and that's going to be as big an element in this as well; music and the fact it will be a fun place for people to chill out, especially in the summer, and catch up with friends after lockdown.
"I run a lot of events for the company, at Buff Club, The Shed, Butterfly and the Pig - all those events, people's celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries and things like that have been cancelled. So this kind of feels like a bit of a tonic for the end of lockdown. We're very much focussed on allowing people to come together, have a great time, catch up and the venue is definitely fun - if you have a look at the cocktail menu, it's with fun in mind.
"We just hope to see people out having fun and catching up and getting Glasgow back to what it is, a great place to hang out."
We're pretty much willing to guarantee: this is a gonna be a good one.
Slice opens this Monday, April 26, with opening hours of 5pm-10pm outdoors and 5pm-8pm indoors each night.
To find out more and to make a booking, you can visit Slice on Instagram here.
