NOT the least of the updated features in the Gay Gordon restaurant when it reopened Glasgow’s Royal Exchange Square in June 1971 was a table telephone service. Diners would now be able to make and receive calls without leaving their seats.
The restaurant had been officially opened by Lady Pamela Mountbatten in 1960 and it became one of the city’s most fashionable eating places. In the mid-sixties it was bought by Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. A new, 180-capacity function suite, the Huntly, opened in December 1970. But the following April a fire broke out in the restaurant, and though there was little actual damage, the venue was flooded, and smoke-filled, and valuable furnishings and decor were ruined. Within five weeks, however, the suite and the basement lounge bar were both back in operation. In June, visiting the newly re-opened restaurant itself, the Glasgow Herald’s Andrew Young noted that the “distinctive tartan, tented decor with crystal chandeliers created by David Hicks for the main dining-room is said to be unique in Britain. Gordon tartan has been used throughout, from the carpet in the dining-room to the mini-kilts to be worn by the cocktail barmaids.” The head chef, Peter Leitner, an Austrian, “intends to introduce Austrian meat dishes, wiener schnitzel, lobsters done in a special way, frog legs and pates new to Glasgow.” A three-course table d’hote lunch could be had for just 78 pence.
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