Broadcast

Upon opening in 2013, this Sauchiehall Street music bar gave itself a doubly big challenge – both as a replacement for much-missed café-bar and venue The Captains Rest on Great Western Road (now an unremarkable chain-owned craft pub), and by setting up shop immediately next door to the great Glasgow booze, burgers and music institution that is Nice’n’Sleazy.

That Broadcast has not only survived this long, but indeed thrived, is no mean feat. Owners PCL – better known as one of Scotland’s biggest concert promoters – deserve plenty of credit for that. Their success lies in not only booking a consistent programme of good local and touring bands and artists in the basement venue, but also in making this a buzzy drinking spot, and letting the kitchen out as a franchise, run by Sean Toner (previously of Crabshakk).

Toner has proven that a menu limited to pub grub classics needn’t impede a little flair and adventure. His Mediterranean-themed pizzas made with speciality sauce on baked-to-order bases are a particular favourite, while his burgers – including the famous Big Mackie (char-grilled 6oz beef patty with charred back bacon, monterrey jack cheese, sticky balsamic onions, crunchy iceberg lettuce, roast garlic aioli and chill tomato jam) – have a growing fan club all of their own.

As a music venue, Broadcast doesn’t have anything like the shoebox-sized buzz of its predecessor The Captains, and the sightlines are pretty terrible once there’s a sizeable crowd in (you may be reduced to watching the show on a fuzzy TV screen by the bar). But if you can squeeze down the front, this dark, low-ceilinged basement is great for up-close-and-personal encounters with the likes of The Amazing Snakeheads, Sleaford Mods and Young Fathers.