Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 20/06/2026 18:27:00

A little piece of Parisian brasserie landed on Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street in the spring of 1979, when Nico's opened its doors near the Charing Cross end of the city's best-known shopping street. Conceived by the young licensee Brian Mulholland at a cost of around 135,000 pounds, it was pitched not as a restaurant but as a French-style bar that served food, bringing a touch of cosmopolitan continental atmosphere to the city. The interior was a key part of its appeal, designed with the help of a television set designer and lined with some 1,500 hand-painted tiles produced in West Kilbride, along with large mirrors that reflected the light. From the start the menu ran from morning coffee and freshly made croissants to pate and cheese, and it traded as a daytime cafe-bar as much as an evening drinking spot. More than four decades on, Nico's remains one of the most enduring and popular bars in the area, its tiled walls and mirrored rooms little changed. It draws an eclectic, all-ages crowd, with loud music, sport on the screens and a lively, sometimes rowdy atmosphere that has made it a long-standing fixture of Glasgow nights out and student memories. Its location near Charing Cross, at the busier western end of Sauchiehall Street, places it among a cluster of bars and close to the city's nightlife. Generations of Glaswegians have passed through over the years, and the bar is often singled out for the speed of its service and the affordability of its drinks. As Sauchiehall Street itself has changed around it, Nico's has held onto its identity as a Parisian-inspired institution, a survivor from the late 1970s that still serves food through the day and fills with drinkers by night. Its longevity and distinctive tiled look keep it a recognisable name on the street. Its survival into a fifth decade, largely unchanged, has given the bar a certain cult status among Glaswegians, many of whom recall student nights spent dancing on its tables before moving on to nearby clubs. As bigger chains have come and gone along Sauchiehall Street, Nico's tiled rooms have remained a constant, and the bar is frequently named among the city's most characterful old-school drinking spots.