THUNDERCAT ROARS FOR TRUST AND FAIRNESS

Since opening his first venue Soho in 2008 with his wife Michelle, Michael Bergson has seen a lot of changes take place in the Glasgow nightlife landscape but maybe none as challenging as the last few months.

In terms of what the customers were looking for in terms of experience to the Glasgow scene itself, many things have evolved and the husband & wife team have had to evolve with it.

“Soho was doing ok, but it was right on the profit line pre lockdown, so we were thinking on a refurbishment to freshen things up as Soho was a 12-year-old concept by now.”

“We wanted something that fitted with the way customers have changed, Glasgow had changed and the merchant city had changed, we wanted to provide an experience.

We wanted something that aligned more with our Buck’s Bar venues which have been a great success, in their feel and surroundings but at the same time individual.”

Contrary to opinion the name Thundercat was not a homage to a childhood cartoon or 80’s revival but came about in more of a unique way.

“We looked at a few names before settling on Thundercat, but we wanted something that felt American and had originally looked at Thunderbird, like the classic car but as this was gone with a venue down south using that name, Thundercat it was.

With Buck’s having a Rock N Roll theme we decided to give Thundercat an old school funk vibe and provide some escapism with good food, good music and a great atmosphere.

People ask why American ? Simply people a lot of the time want to feel like they are somewhere else even just for a night or a few hours, even if they don’t have a lot of money to spend, getting away from it really, and we like to think we provide that at Thundercat & Buck’s”

Michael’s vast experience in the on-trade goes back many years for his youthful age, running some high profile venues for organisations like G1 Group to Lynnet Lesuire and he is happy to share that he has learned a lot from the people

he looked up to in the trade over the years.

“I have always tried to be a sponge from people around me as I learned my trade if you like, Michael told us,

people who have built successful businesses in the hospitality sector over the years that have a real drive and passion to succeed and hope that learning base has given me a strong foundation to build on.”

Michael explained how important the staff are to the Buck’s & Thundercat brand.

“The staff have been fantastic, and we are very proud to say we have not lost anyone over this time.”

“At the beginning of the outbreak and just before the lockdown, of course, there was a bit of uncertainty, do we close? Do we stay open? What’s best for the staff & customers? Then came the lockdown.

There were ups and downs during that period like I’m sure everyone experienced but since being able to open up again all of the staff have been keen to get to work and we have worked with them to make the venues are as safe as possible following all he restrictions to the letter and

giving them as much stability as we can .”

The restrictions, however, are another matter and whilst Michael, along with ourselves and many others in the industry understand that there is a public health matter to deal with and restrictions of some kind are a part of the new normal we all have to adjust to, the extent and illthought-out nature of some of them seem more of a knee jerk reaction than well thought through and we at OnTrade Scotland Magazine couldn’t agree more.

He has been very vocal in his questioning of not only the restrictions like the music ban in venues but also the everincreasing measures enforced on the hospitality venues through his Linkedin feed which has gained over 30,000 views to date.

Michael said in his post, “The Scottish Government’s National Clinical Director Professor Leitch made some truly astounding comments about his perceptions regarding hospitality yesterday.

Do the powers that be even understand any of the restrictions they’ve already imposed? It would appear not.

How can we blame hospitality for rising COVID cases if we don’t have any science to confirm this? To me, it all seems like guesswork. Decisions being made in accordance with certain individuals’ opinions and not facts.”

“The key decision-makers are clearly out of touch.”

“It’s time to support hospitality and keep the key measures in place. We have reached the point of regulation overload. Let us get on with it and trust us to continue to do so safely.”

OnTrade Scotland Magazine fully supports Michael’s views which have been delivered in a very sensible way.

Michael continued, “We have worked with the EHO from the start to understand what we have had to do and how we have had to do it, like screens between booths and other measures we actually got inspiration from OTHER HOSPITALITY VENUES, they weren’t really communicated to us by them in the beginning.

We now have QR codes on the menus themselves, you have the covid measures next you at the table we have table service to limit he contact with numerous people, the customer is seated relaxed and isolated safely and able to enjoy the experience without it being a stop and start process that feels uncomfortable and unnatural and moving about everywhere.

“We have worked with our IT team to set things up so this is a smooth and compliant process to provide trace and protect data in an accurate way and when the EHO came in they were very happy with what had been done .”

“In our opinion, there has to be far more trust displayed by the powers that be.”

“If the government tell us what the risks are, what has to be put in place and the measures that have to be followed and then actually TRUST us as business owners to carry them out then hat would make the world of difference .”

“If we can have some of the best innovators in the industry, like SWG3, Donald Macleod, the guys at Bamboo, John Blane why can’t we just trust the trade to get on with it.”

“The more you trust people the more you will get out of them.”

Both The First minister & Prof Jason Leitch have both been on a call where hey confess to not having seen a report where the case is shown that the music ban has no foundation in protecting anyone.

Some of the reaction to Michaels comments have been bizarre for example having the police attend his home to answer a complaint of being a COVID denier due to a disgruntled individual obtaining his details from companies house and reporting him.

“The police had agreed that the music ban was wrong in their opinion and the opening of venues had reduced the cases of house parties and domestic violence cases reported so if the powers that be are not listening to the people enforcing the measures what chance do we as business owners have.”

“The idea that because we sell alcohol in the venues that people totally lose the ability to social distance when they do that is total nonsense.

We have worked closely with RS100 on our sound systems in the venues to provide clear quality sound and a big part of the atmosphere in Buck’s & Thundercat so having background music helps people distance to help mask conversations, we don’t “blare“ music like in a potential nightclub situation which restricting is understandable.”

“We think that venues being allowed to open till 1am as they do in Spain would provide a far better structure instead of closing at 10 pm (or temp closing for 16 days like we have had ) as we do not see the medical evidence supporting this, it would also give a staggered exit flow from venues and help provide a revenue stream for businesses instead of forcing a bottleneck of a busy 2 hour period to then dump everyone on the street at the one time.”

We fully support Michaels views which are echoed by many in the trade and call for the first minister and the Scottish government to provide more support to the hospitality trade and actually engage with people like Michael and other respected owners the way they have in the retail and supermarket sectors to work on a better way forward and most of all provide some trust.

We are all in this together.