“It’s like stepping into a time warp,” Allan Smith grins as he creaks open a door.
The Aberdeen businessman is taking us inside Budz Bar, a portal into the past adorned with posters for 69p shots and littered with debris from a different time altogether.
This hazily remembered venue closed to punters in 2007 amid a storm over minimum alcohol pricing laws, and it hadn’t seen the light of day again until 2023.
That was when Allan and business partner Bruce Porter bought the derelict bar – and the entire building above it.
By the time they got inside, its once sticky dancefloor was knee-deep in water after lead from the roof was stolen.
Major plans would cost £2 million
But that, nor the fact the building appeared about to “collapse” within months, was enough to scare them off.
The pair have a big dream of turning its four storeys into “the city’s biggest venue”.
Their ambitious £2m Glitch complex would have two floors of ultra-modern crazy golf courses, a trendy nightclub where Budz once was, a lavish cocktail bar and even a “floor is lava” game room.
Now, for the first time, they have shared the full story behind the project that has been the talk of the town for months.
Welcoming the P&J into the deceptively huge 200-year-old site, they showed us around and painted a vivid picture of what could be to come…
- Allan recalls how his hunt for a venue led to a Union Street building empty for nearly 20 years, and which was “about to fall down”
- New images show how the “hi-tech” crazy golf will feature, among other eye-catching attractions, a replica 1970s-style New York subway train
- Meanwhile, an “immensely Instagrammable” cocktail bar could even have individual Prosecco taps on each table
- And Allan tells us why he thinks the landmark project can help turn around the struggling city centre at a pivotal point
Inside look: New owners of Budz Bar speak about plans for the first time
Trudging through snow along Union Street as we head to meet Allan and Bruce, we pass a sobering string of closed buildings.
Our destination is just across from a longstanding WH Smith now emblazoned with bright yellow “closing down” signs, a sadly common sight on the Granite Mile.
When we meet the local entrepreneur, he wastes little time in acknowledging the scale of the challenge before him.
But while Allan is frank about the city centre’s fortunes, he believes it can be saved.
It just needs some creative thinking, and maybe a new attraction to lure people here.
And he’s convinced that, if he builds it, they will come.
So how did this all come about in the first place?
Allan’s work kitting out sushi joints takes him all over the UK, and it was on a trip to Liverpool that an interesting idea began to take shape…
The Aberdeen upholsterer and his team tend to carry out their refurbishments at night, so that venues can keep trading during the day, and are always on the lookout for activities to fill time between shifts.
It was as he putted a ball at a modern crazy golf venue in the English city that he began wondering why Aberdeen didn’t have anything like this.
‘There’s a gap in the market here’
The 38-year-old explains: “We travel and do a lot of work in England, and had seen crazy golf is a bit of a thing…
“There’s Junkyard Golf in various places, and another called Puttshack which is popular.
“And along with that, how many people travel from Aberdeen to places like Glasgow or Edinburgh for a good night out?
“I just began thinking there was a bit of a gap in the market here.
“We want it to be crazy golf… But not crazy golf as you know it.”
It might be a bit more like this:
How did crazy golf idea lead to Union Street’s oldest empty unit?
With his idea in mind, Allan set about finding a venue.
He looked at the long-empty Tiger Tiger nightclub on Shiprow – but it wasn’t big enough.
And while driving past the old Budz Bar in his work van one day, a thought crossed Allan’s mind.
“I’d never seen ‘to let’ signs on it in all the time it’s been lying there,” he explains.
“So I went back to my office to find out who owned it.”
Fateful encounter with generous tycoon…
The trail eventually led to Alan Wallace, a legendary Aberdeen businessman whose vast portfolio included several hotels in his heyday.
He bought the Union Street building about a quarter of a century ago, but it had fallen off his radar for several years.
The 73-year-old was about to retire when Allan got in touch last year.
Answering the phone at his Crown Street office, the property magnate revealed that, as it happened, it was the final building he was looking to offload before calling it a day.
The flabbergasted Luxous boss took this as “an omen” and quickly arranged a meeting.
After a few chats, he said that the veteran businessman began to see something of his younger self in Allan.
And soon enough, the “deal of a lifetime” was struck.
The price agreed seemed “too good to be true” but it was legit, and the building was swiftly signed over.
What was the Budz Bar building like at first?
Allan and Bruce soon realised the scale of the challenge before them when they got the keys to the crumbling site.
Bruce sighs: “The amount of structural repairs we have had to do on this…
“It was still exactly the same as the day Budz Bar closed, albeit with a few inches of water on the floor.
“There were still posters up advertising 69p vodka.”
Since last summer, remedial work has been taking place.
And Allan reckons that, if not for these efforts, the 17,000sq ft building might not still be standing.
He explains: “The roof was collapsing, we saved the building.
“It dates back to the 1820s so we were looking at 200 years of decay… And I don’t think it would have lasted another year.”
Why are business partners uniquely suited to bringing Glitch to life?
Allan’s Luxous company is behind a range of Granite City restaurant overhauls, and created the ABERDEEN letters currently catching the eye in Union Terrace Gardens.
He’s fitted out the popular Tarragon on Rosemount, Siberia on Belmont Street and various PB Devco city centre hotspots.
That’s in addition to regular work with Yo Sushi! across the UK and Ireland.
This, he explains, puts him in a unique position to make a success of the city centre building.
For one thing, he and fabricator Bruce own “every machine” required for the work, meaning they will just be paying for staff and material – with zero outsourcing required.
But it’s more than just that.
As a contractor on various other schemes, Allan is used to coming up with some fairly imaginative ideas.
But these bolder design choices are often the first thing to go when developers begin to count costs.
As he puts it: “They start removing all the really cool stuff.”
That won’t be the case here, with the pair of dreamers only answering to themselves…
So what’s in store for the Budz Bar building?
Allan explains: “If you don’t drink and want to go out on Union Street there’s not really much there for you, and nor are there many places for families to have a day out at.
“We want a venue where you can take the family during the day, and by night it becomes a place for adults, with a cocktail bar and a nightclub.”
With that in mind, here’s how the premises could be reborn.
The lower ground floor, where Budz Bar was, would become a nightclub.
Navigating our way past dismantled seating, Allan tells us the venue “literally looked like it had just closed its doors” when he first clapped eyes on it.
In his future vision, down below the entrance off Union Street, there would be some private booths available to book, and a DJ booth beyond them.
There would also be booth seating for other punters, and a possible dining area (potentially specialising in street food) down at the bottom.
The nightclub would be aimed at the more relaxed 25-and-over demographic, with the potential for DJ nights and bands.
The bar has already been ripped out, and it would offer table service, with owners keen to keep it distinct from the other nightspots nearby.
Former clothes shop has lain empty for decades
The ground floor off Union Street was previously home to a furniture shop and latterly the Justrite clothes store.
It has lain vacant even longer than the bar below it.
Much like when they got inside Budz Bar, Bruce tells us that the old Justrite looked like “it had just shut its doors and been left to rot for 20 years” when they looked around.
This level, accessed off Union Street, would be converted into two crazy golf courses.
So what will they entail?
‘People will walk in and say ‘oh my god”
Allan’s eyes come alive as he gazes out into the cavernous space and describes his vision to bring it alive.
Running the length of the floor, he wants a 100m long exact replica of a 1970s New York subway train.
He grins: “People will literally walk in and say ‘oh my god’.
“We are building a replica train, and I want it to be exact.”
Alongside that course, which is inspired by cult film The Warriors, there would be three other options with each boasting nine holes.
Allan envisages one of these to be inspired by a 1950s circus, and another by Tokyo in decades gone by.
So is this what he meant by “crazy golf… but not as we know it”?
That’s not the half of it.
Glitch would be “massively influenced by technology”, with bluetooth chips implanted in the golf balls to track progress.
This could mean that players take a break for a pint mid-game, and then pick back up right where they left off.
Challenges could include circus-inspired feats, and cheating would become impossible.
What about the next level up?
Next, Allan guides us up a centuries-old staircase to the first floor.
The bulk of the space here would be taken up by two more crazy golf courses.
What will the cocktail bar be like?
But beyond them would be, he hopes, a top destination for a girly night out – serving drinks with “a ridiculous amount of theatricality”.
A mixologist will be hired to concoct a range of “Instagrammable” options for the attraction.
And even the cheapest items would have some “theatrical element”.
As well as tipples that customers just won’t be able to resist sharing on social media, Allan is thinking of installing Prosecco taps on each table for easy access to glasses of fizz.
“I want people to feel like they are being treated like royalty when they visit,” he adds.
Slide could add to the fun at reborn venue
Over in the corner, there would be a tunnel branded with the slogan “curiosity often leads to trouble”.
This would lead to another, “secret”, bar towards the rear of the ground floor which customers can reach in a rather unique fashion…
They’d be able to pop down a chute, sliding from the cocktail bar to the “hidden” destination.
Meanwhile, up on the second floor, facing Justice Mill Lane, would be a Project Pizza diner.
Even that is a tactical choice, as crazy golf players could easily mosey through the courses with a slice in their hand.
And another larger restaurant would offer space for dozens of diners, with the kitchen created at the very top of the building.
A “floor is lava” games room would be created in a wide room at the back of an upper level.
“We just thought it could be something fun, where people could jump about like kids,” Allan says.
And even one of the upper-level flats has been factored in, as potential accommodation to help entice a general manager to run Glitch.
Are you excited at the prospect of visiting the venue? Let us know in our comments section below
‘I want to create something phenomenal’
Allan has little time for the “Abermoaners” prognosticating doom for the troubled city centre, though he admits he used to be one.
As our tour draws to a close, he tells us of his belief that the entire saga thus far has “happened for a reason”…
He confides: “I used to be one of the folk moaning about things on the Evening Express Facebook page.
“And yes the market is poor right now, but it needs an effort to recover and it feels like people aren’t prepared to invest in venues…”
Inside look at Budz Bar comes at turning point for city centre
He continues: “Online retail has changed what the high street is about, it’s no longer about shopping.
“And in Aberdeen specifically, Union Square has taken away a lot of trade from Union Street.
“But we just need to give people a reason to visit Union Street, and we want to make a statement with this building.
“It will be the biggest venue in Aberdeen by a mile!”
Bruce, who runs Bru Fabrication, is an Aberdeen native and can (just about) remember being inside Budz Bar in its 2000s heyday.
He adds: “Getting inside has been really eye-opening, there are windows and fireplaces upstairs that show how the place has changed over the years.
“We found everything from 100-year-old beer bottles to a guide on working during World War Two when we’ve been fixing it up.”
‘Things happen for a reason’
As we head back out into the cold, we look up at the Justice Mill Lane brickwork that could soon be clad in a dazzling lights display.
And Allan adds: “Where Luxous excels is getting a project and running with it.
“Things just happen for a reason in life, and we want this to be phenomenal.
“We can help turn Aberdeen into a city of colour.”
However, despite some preliminary work making the building safe, efforts will only be able to properly begin if Aberdeen City Council grants planning permission.
You can view and comment on the plans here.
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