Yates

I don’t know how this bar has survived all these years. The food is awful they have had a lot of problems with kitchen staff the problem is no one wants to work for them, the bar area is dirty and to top it off slow service in fact if it got any slower they would be going backwards. I have had three friends come here on a night out only to have severe allergic reaction to their alcohol if you want to even call it that. Avoid this bar at all costs.

Saturday night, city centre pub, what would you be looking for?
If you’re looking for a quiet place where you can chat with your chums and enjoy a real ale, don’t come here. At about nine o’clock they take half the tables and chairs away and put them in a cupboard. The space becomes a dance floor and the DJ starts to play all the latest dance tracks. This IS the kind of place where young girls get ID’d at the door and stand playing with their mobile while being ogled at by the older men.
The tables that are still there are occupied mostly by ladies with big jugs. They have a big jug of some cocktail EACH, with a couple of straws. The bar was about two deep all night long. The drinks are reasonably priced,
Upstairs had been hired out to a Hen Party and a kid-​on Fireman went up in a uniform and came back down wearing a big towel.
If you’re ‘on the pull’ and like a wee dance before going on to a club, this will suit you. It closes at midnight on a Saturday night.

The boyfriend and I come here often for food after we’ve been to the cinema. It’s in a good central location for meeting up with people — close to Cineworld, Buchanan Street, Central Station, Sauchiehall Street etc.
When we go, there is usually music playing with TVs switched on in the background but the sound is kept low so it’s a nice place for a quiet conversation. It’s different in the evenings at the weekends; I’ve never been in at that time but it’s always packed and loud when I’ve walked past on a Friday or Saturday night.
However, we only go for the food. The food is low priced but always of a decent quality and often far superior to most of the other bars offering food in the area at more expensive prices. They also do good food deals like 2 for 1 meals and desserts or a meal and a drink at a set price. Drinks are also good value, particularly wine and cocktails.

A fancy Wetherspoons.
Something like that.
It’s not a million miles away from JD and his crew, with a familiar layout and menu with reasonable drinks prices as well as with the food, it’s a sensible enough place to start out your night.
As has been mentioned elsewhere though, it can get a bit hostile and ugly in the evening time, presumably due to a combination of cheap alcohol and its location near Glasgow Central with folk rushing home on the last train knocking them back rapid style before the break of 11pm.
This might or might not be an accurate assumption, but given the Sauchiehall Street branch doesn’t seem to be as rowdy, I will happily believe that a significant proportion of the variance accounted for here is due to the location, rather than the alcohol. The prices are the same up on Sauchiehall Street, but located near pricier bars and removed from a nearby train station.
Either I like to simplify the world to small measurable phenomena or I am really good at making valid world weary observations.
Or maybe it’s somewhere in between.

I have only ever been here for the food, honestly. While that doesn’t exactly give me the class I try to impress upon everyone I meet, it does mean that I cannot possibly comment on how this bar is when it is busy on a Saturday night. I hear that it is dynamic and packed, full of up for it drinkers.
However, I know that it has a nice menu– plain enough, standard pub fare, with the baked potatoes actually baked and the deserts worth risking that diabetic rush. It is also quick to service, the staff are friendly and the atmosphere– quiet. Quiet and well mannered.
Mind you, I am always out by five.

Timing is crucial when it comes to Yates. In the evening and especially at the weekend it is messy — I feel my body tensing up at the thought. Certainly not one for a relaxing experience and I’m not sure why so many people pile in here. You are most likely to be squashed in a corner amongst a bunch of idiots who will probably start incessantly talking to you.
At other times, it is ok though but definitely nothing special. In fact I’d be more likely to go to the Wetherspoons across the road and that’s saying something/

If you’re unfortunate enough to be out in Glasgow city centre on a Saturday night, I advise that you avoid this place like the plague. Situated smack bang in the middle of town, surrounded by similarly cheap pubs, it tends to attract a crowd of white stiletto wearing wag wannabes and boozed up bingers, looking for a fight.
However, it is unrecognisable during the day, as a pretty decent place to eat, offering two main meals for a £5 and buy one get one free desserts, including the most delicious Belgian waffles. The drinks are cheap and the food is great value. I recommend paying a visit during the day for a long lunch, however I’d head elsewhere of an evening if you want to avoid the busy bar and rowdy crowd of cretins.

Only advisable during the day when it’s quiet and you can cash in with their cheap drink and food. Night time is an array of flashing sequins and aggressive punters.

Cheap drink and cheap food attract the worse type of drinker. Its full of neds and there are fights galore! Stay away for your own health!

Just off the main shopping area but still withing the city centre this bar offers a range of drinks and food promotions, such as burger and a pint for about £5.50,
Plays music and has a DJ in after 8 on friday and saturday. They will reserve an area for any parties for a couple of hours — they kept the whole 1^st floor shut for us for a couple of hours on a saturday night for a birthday celebration at no charge.