The Locale
Josh Barr spent GBP 100,000 turning 241 North Street around in 2019, and most of it went out the back door into a yard that holds 120 people on poured concrete under heaters.
Why go
Barr had the keys from February 2019 and opened that July, in the unit that had been the Black Sparrow, with his father Colin backing the build and the bar counted part of the family's Bier Halle group (DRAM). The ground floor was built for standing rather than sitting, because Barr told DRAM he was trying to encourage 'vertical drinking' culture so there are high tables but we've also got booths.
The basement runs darker and opens at weekends. The outdoor Yard is the part he calls the jewel in the crown
, enclosed and heated with German-style beer benches, BBQs and fire pits. There is no cask ale here at all, per CAMRA's Glasgow branch survey, so the beer is canned craft out of the fridges alongside cocktails and an Americana grill menu.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a margarita and take it out to the Yard, which is what Barr himself sends visiting drinkers here for. Free range fried chicken. An Aberdeen Angus burger. Canned beer, since that is the only beer.
- Avoid: cask ale, which the branch listing records as unavailable, and Monday lunchtime, when the doors stay shut until 5pm.
What locals & experts say
- CAMRA, Glasgow & West of Scotland branch, in its pub survey last updated 4 December 2024:
The pub has canned craft beers and cocktails with fried chicken, tacos and burgers. Unusual for Glasgow this pub has a substantial beer garden, known as the Yard.
The same listing recordsCask Ale not available.
5 - Paul Trainer, Glasgowist, covering the build in June 2019 and passing no verdict on it:
Now work is underway on The Locale Bar Diner and Beer Yard. Expect craft beer, sweet or savoury brunch options, free range fried chicken, Aberdeen Angus beef burgers and Basque pintxos bar snacks.
4 - Josh Barr to DRAM, on where the money went:
It's 120 capacity and we've poured concrete in to make a new floor as well as updating the terrace area, which is now enclosed, complete with heaters, German-style beer benches, BBQs, fire-pits and plants.
His own venue, so this is description.2 - No critic review found. Searches on 30 July 2026 for a bylined review of the food or the drinks list turned up nothing in The Skinny, the Glasgow Times, Glasgowist or The Glasgow Bell, and the Yard is absent from Paul Trainer's 42-venue Glasgow beer-garden roundup for 2026.
Good to know
- Where: 241 North Street at Charing Cross, a few doors from the Berkeley Suite at 237.
- Timing: noon to midnight most days, 1am on Friday and Saturday, and 5pm opening on Mondays.
- Booking: walk-ins welcome, though the venue asks you to book, and larger groups should.
- Beer: no cask. Canned craft only.
- The unit's history: Ritz, then Liberte Bar, then the Sualdo's Mexican pop-up from the Berkeley Suite team, then The Gin Rickey and its 77 gins, then this. Four turnovers before Barr, which is the context for a bar that has now held the address seven years.
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme records a Pass, rating date 26 October 2021. Pass is the clean result in the Scottish scheme, and that inspection is nearly five years old.7
- Operator: Josh Barr, who also runs West Side Tavern in Partick, inside his father Colin Barr's Bier Halle group. A family licensee operation rather than a chef-owner betting on a menu.
Verdict
could-visit — Go if you are passing Charing Cross on a warm afternoon, and go for the Yard. Josh Barr poured GBP 100,000 into this unit in 2019 and the money mostly went outside: 120 capacity on new concrete with heaters, German beer benches, BBQs and fire pits, which CAMRA's Glasgow branch flags as unusual for the city. Inside it is a competent family-run bar with canned craft beer, cocktails, fried chicken and burgers, and no cask ale at all. Nobody with a byline has assessed the cooking and no award body has looked at it, so the rung rests on the room and the drink rather than the plate, which is the right way round for a bar and also the reason it does not climb. Weighing craft first, per the primacy rule, there is no evidence of rotation in the fridges and no depth to point at, so the send here is the terrace and the late licence, honestly labeled.