hillhead bookclub

i have been here more often than any other place in glasgow. the ambience is artsy, feels homely and personal. the food is reasonably priced and they even do £2 drinks (including mojitos!)

this place is great for a casual meal or drinks - they even have table tennis tables. overall, the atmosphere is lively.

i would highly recommend this place simply for good food, and great drinks but would not count on the service especially on sunday afternoons - they are understaffed, with dozy workers, and it is highly likely that one would find themselves waiting for (what seems like) a decade before being served.

the hillhead bookclub is a charming place that oozes personality (even the menu is witty).

the dining space is a converted theatre and as such has magnificent decor. yet for all the grandeur, the small booths in which we were seated made the dining experience very personal.

i ordered the bookclub and burger and was not dissapointed. it was large and cooked perfectly all the way through. at only £8 i thought this extremely good value for money.

this was a lovely place and i wouldn't hesitate to pop in again for some good, cheap grub.

disappointed with service. my husband and i have always enjoyed going to eat at bookclub. we've always enjoyed the atmosphere and the food is wonderful. in the beginning the service was an issued but being from the us we laughed it off and thought maybe the pace of life here was different. i no longer think its a matter of pace of life....the service at bookclub is just horrific and after the experience i had tonight, i thought it was time to create an account and write up a review.
whenever we go to bookclub, be it busy or not, there is never a member of staff at the door to great you. you have to stand awkwardly at the door for up to 10 min before you are noticed. if you choose to sit down before someone has spoken to you be prepared to wait extra long to be noticed, they notice you but they seem to be annoyed you decided to seat yourself rather than stand awkwardly in the drafty doorway for 10 min. food can take forever and you can go an entire meal without having your drink refreshed. tonight, my husband and i went in to eat dinner. there was no one in bookclub and about five staff members, just walking around. we sat down, without any staff help and all five of them walked by us at one point without a nod or a ill be there to help you in a minute. after 20 minutes we left.
it sucks to write this review. we spent christmas and new years in bookclub but we wont be going back again. its just not worth it.

the patty itself was well seasoned; however, my only criticism was that it was overcooked ever so slightly. i still ate every last bite, but i would have preferred it to have been a little less well-done. it wasn’t dry by any means, but was just a little more well-done that i’d normally like my burgers to be. the cheese and red onion relish complimented the patty well, particularly the relish which was extremely well received by everyone at our table for it’s deep, flavoursome taste. we got a very generous helping of it on our burgers, which allowed us to really taste it too. a good relish can really make a good burger great and this one certainly helped hide the fact that the patty was slightly overcooked.

this is a great chill out place which is very conveniently located along byres road. the food was alright and features your standard pub food.

good food & music. really love this place, the food and atmosphere are always great. booked through 5pm.co.uk last week - the value for money was great!! will definitely continue to be a regular.

terrible service. service is awful. i'm a very patient person but i ordered pancakes with bacon and for some reason, this took 40 minutes to arrive and that was after managing to flag down a "waiter" to ask what on earth was going on. i say "flag down" because it's almost impossible to attract their attention. they're all very good at running around but very rarely did i see them actually attending to any tables. my pancakes arrived and for some reason had syrup on them instead of bacon. that can be fixed, but is it that difficult to get right in the first place? my friend's food arrived about 10 minutes after mine - again, had to flag down someone as for whatever reason they didn't notice my food had arrived but my friend's order hadn't. the waiter didn't check if everything was ok and it was another huge effort to get the bill. ended up paying at the bar because i was past sitting around looking like an idiot.
you shouldn't have to go out of your way to order your food and they can't seem to get something as basic as that right.

i'm afraid this place is pretentious, very much so, it's evident throughout the place (the "quirky" touches like mismatched cutlery and charity shop plates, the retro games, even the type of staff they employ) which i wouldn't mind if the service wasn't so darn terrible.

terrible service!. i regularly drink in the hillhead bookclub at the weekends and have often found the service to be a bit slow. however, i was recently extremely annoyed and frustrated when i tried to order a drink there on a saturday night. it was very busy, about three deep at the bar, and the bar staff spent all their time larking around, chatting to each other and showing each other texts/photos on their mobile phones. i waited at least 10 minutes before any of the bar staff even looked at me and when i was served the barman seemed as though it was a hassle to serve me. i am really disappointed at the level of service that is offered in this bar and will not be giving them any more of my business. i emailed the management to highlight the problems that i had with the bar staff but i did not receive a reply, so that leads me to believe that they dont think customer service is very important. there are plenty of bars in the westend which provide much nicer surrounding and a much higher level of customer service, so in future i will spend my hard earned cash in one of these instead of the hillhead bookclub.

this is a fun place to have a few drinks! we went for the £3 strawberry mojitos...go down too well! you can even enjoy a game of ping pong or super mario. its great to have somewhere with cheap drinks that's also really cool in the west end!

good games but dodgy dinners. what they have done to this place is nice, it's quirky with some nice touches like retro games and table tennis. but, what is this doing in a restaurant? well, to be honest food is not what you should be coming here for.

the level of the food is below average and sadly reminds me of the standard that would have been acceptable in glasgow 10 years ago. perhaps they were trying to give us retro food to go with the retro games?

we ordered mussels (recommended as a special of the day), which were actually off! the steak pie was salty with a dried puff pastry as a garnish and the pigeon tasted over hung... very disappointing.

i would go there for a drink and play the nintendo, but stay away from the food...

excellent!. was here last saturday evening with some friends and was very impressed. food was simple but effective and reasonably priced. two female waitresses were serving downstairs together and both were attentive, friendly and very speedy. will undoubtedly be returning! keen to try out the brunch menu!

lay off. hb has had a bit of stick, theres no reason for it!
my friends and i went for dinner the other night and had a great time. the staff were friendly and drinks were brilliant. we wil all be back!

always a warm welcome. i always like to drop in here when i am in the west end - you always get a friendly greeting, whether you are in for a meal or just a quick drink and game of ping pong!

i love the decor and, as a messy eater, am glad of the tea-towel instead of a pile of cheap paper napkins! my experience with the food has been great. fab burgers and a great range of tasty pies and at reasonable prices.

as for people calling the place pretentious, i think it is more a case of 'anything goes'. i have been in fully dressed up for a night on the tiles at times and at others looking like i have just finished climbing ben nevis, but have never been made to feel out of place. i love the fact that there is a whole mix of people at hhbc - variety is the spice and all that. people would be quick to complain if there were another insipid wetherspoons in its place.

nothing wrong with being a bit different, in fact, hhbc, i applaud you.

a bit of a breath of fresh air this place. having just moved to the west end of glasgow, i had heard lots of exciting things about the area but the bookclub is the first place to really deliver anything out of the ordinary. (although stravaigin very good too)
a nice hello as soon as my partner and i arrived was a good start and the decor in the place is amazing. got a carafe of water with strawberry and mint in it which was the first of many touches that seperates it from the other places in the area. a strawberry gin mojito for me and a cute mini carafe of white wine with a glass tumbler gave a nice mellow rustic feel to the evening.

having explained the specials our waitress (who was already in my partner's good books for complimenting her scarf) was just the right balance of friendly and attentive.

we shared a half pint of whitebait as a starter and as well as being quite moreish, it was served in an old school glass tankard.

a simple steak pie for my main was good value for money with succulent chunks of meat and a decent drizzle of gravy, (not exactly rocket science but very tasty) while my partner opted for a vegetarian lasagne which also went down a treat. we each had a good giggle at the plates too as my pie was served on a snowman design and the lasagne on a ruby wedding anniversary dish.

no space for dessert unfortunately and a prior engagement with the cinema meant no ping pong either. but we'll be back for sure

love, love, love this place! this place is proof that london doesn't have it all! went here today for sunday brunch and didn't know where to look first: the eclectic furniture, the painstakingly mismatched charity-shop sourced cutlery or the beautiful ceiling of what i think used to be a cinema? the staff was friendly and attentive while my veggie full english was definitely a winner. some people might think it's pretentious; i think it's genius. this place is a trip down memory lane for people like me who grew up in the late 80s/early 90s and remember desk projectors at school which the bookclub now cleverly uses as the today's special board; not to mention their supernintendo & sega corner where you can play a few rounds of streetfighter; or check out their ping-pong table. the perfect place to spend a sunday afternoon. would love to come back on a sat night if i'm in glasgow again.