The Griffin sits proudly on the corner of Bath Street and Elmbank Street, directly opposite the King’s Theatre — and the two have kept each other company for well over a century, having been built together in 1903. A B-listed Edwardian corner pub of tilework, stained glass and dark wood, the Griffin is one of Glasgow’s best-loved eating and drinking institutions, as well known to generations of theatregoers as it is to the office workers and locals of the city centre’s west side.
Built with the King’s
The Griffin was raised in 1903 alongside the King’s Theatre across the road, and the two have seen the passing of over a century together — the pub for the interval dram and the after-show pint, the theatre for the show. Known as the King’s Arms until 1969, when it took its present name, it is a Category B listed building that retains much of its original wooden interior, its window panels and leadwork, and a beautiful tiled floor in the main bar. It is, for all its traditional bones, a comfortably trendy room, popular with local celebrities as much as with students.
The Art Nouveau Remnants
The connoisseur’s interest at the Griffin lies in what survives of a grand Art Nouveau remodelling of 1903–4 by the architect William Reid. The heritage body CAMRA is honest that these are now remnants rather than a complete scheme, following unsympathetic alterations in the 1960s — but they are superb remnants: the counter front and the base of the gantry are original, and the most interesting work runs around the periphery, where clear remains of snugs survive behind wide, arched openings, complete with stained-glass work. The exterior, happily, still retains much of its original exciting flavour.
The Pre-Theatre Ritual
For generations of Glaswegians the Griffin has been woven into the ritual of a night at the King’s — the pre-show dinner, the interval dram, the after-curtain pint — and it remains one of the great pre-theatre pubs of the city, its handsome wooden interior, snug seating and B-listed fittings full of the warmth of a proper old Glasgow bar. It is deceptively good value, famous among regulars for its enormous, freshly-cooked pub classics (the chicken goujons have a devoted following of their own), and it caters as easily to a theatre crowd in their finery as to the office workers and students who fill it at lunchtime. Just across the road from the King’s stage door — close enough that patrons speak of the walk between them as their own private Diagon Alley — the Griffin has spent well over a century as the pub the theatre made, and the two are impossible to imagine apart.
A Theatreland Fixture
The Griffin’s long partnership with the King’s has woven it into the cultural life of the city. It is well known to theatre-goers the country over, given a humble nod by the novelist Iain Banks in Espedair Street, and used as a filming location — scenes from the 2013 film Sunshine on Leith were shot here, among other television snippets. It is that particular kind of Glasgow institution: unpretentious, genuinely historic, and so much a part of the streetscape that the city would feel wrong without it.
Famed in equal measure for its Edwardian fabric and its legendary chicken goujons, the Griffin is the archetype of the Glasgow corner pub done well — a listed building that has never stopped being a busy, unfussy local, and the natural first or last stop for anyone spending an evening at the King’s.