hillhead bookclub

disappointing. both food and staff were pants. they sometimes get it ok with food but biggest let down are the staff. they didn't pay much attention, got orders wrong and spent ages chatting to each other instead of looking after diners. think could be good weeplaceif they spent the same time on training staff and looking at quality of food as they do trying to be cool and quirky. it's not cool. lots of other places doing better around them for now and would recommend sussing them out first until hb tries harder.

great venue. loving this place!! i visited here last weekend for afternoon drinks with friends, had heard loads about it so thought we would pop in for a visit.
it looks amazing inside, quite retro but with a modern edge.
the mezzanine level is really nice for sitting at for a drink as it overlooks the main bar.
they do a special on the mojito's you get them for £3 and they are delicious!
for food i had the veg bean burger - it was really tasty and the chips are sooo good!
my friend had the all day breakfast and really enjoyed it.
i really like the atmosphere in the bar its really relaxed and the music modern.
i would highly recommend a visit its the type ofplaceyou can relax for an all day session!

a firm favourite. don't be put off by some of the negative remarks here, thisplaceis great. good food at decent prices, good selection of booze and it's laid back. maybe not for a special occassion but definitely to chill out with your mates. love it x


-----24 may, 2011-----

friendly and fun. friendly staff with good banter and good, homemade, quality grub. would definitely recommend it x

went there for cocktails and chips, had the daquiris and they were soo good! and their chips are cut chips and still has skin on them, just the way i like it! the ambience of theplaceis also very good, vintage and hipster kindda feel, totally recommended ?

i love hillhead bookclub! the ambience is perfect for a night out with friends or for a romantic date. the food is great, particularly the burgers and garlic bread. this is oneplacei've returned to time and again :)

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

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

i would highly recommend thisplacesimply 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 charmingplacethat 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 lovelyplaceand i wouldn't hesitate to pop in again for some good, cheap grub.

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

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 thisplaceis pretentious, very much so, it's evident throughout theplace(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.

this is a funplaceto 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 thisplaceis 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...

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 theplacepretentious, 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 firstplaceto 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 theplaceis 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! thisplaceis 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. thisplaceis 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 perfectplaceto spend a sunday afternoon. would love to come back on a sat night if i'm in glasgow again.

where the hell are the staff???. deleted a previous ok review for thisplaceas few visits later it has been bad each time.

the staff are one of the biggest problems. they just aren't very attentive. even after a few visits we are still unsure if it is meant to be table service or order at the bar. staff hardly around and hard to track down. our wine took almost 20 minutes to arrive after we almost forced someone to take our order. took us ages to get our plates taken away and to pay the bill. theplacewasn't even packed at this time. as other reviews say, all a bit pretentious too and trying to be cool.

food didn't go down too well. they brought us wrong thing but apologised and quickly fixed it. we went for a beef and a bean burger as mains. chunks of burger were collapsing onto the plate as you tried to eat it so obviously the chef hasn't used enough to bind them. so more than half of our meal was still on our plate when they finally came to take them away. and they didn't ask if it was ok.

bad service and bad food i'm afraid. nice venue though and good as a bar. terrible as a restaurant. reckon they should give up the food part or have the downstairs as bar and upstairs as food only.