Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 19/06/2026 20:29:00

Set inside a glass-roofed courtyard in the historic Barras Market, Barras Art and Design - universally shortened to BAaD - is a multipurpose events, food, and drink venue at 54 Calton Entry in Glasgow's East End. The site brings together a covered central courtyard used as the main event space, a restaurant, a bar, a planted beer garden, and a sun-trapped container yard, all within one of the city's most characterful market districts. The building began life as the Barras Centre, a dysfunctional and partly roofless courtyard structure that had fallen into disrepair. It was taken on around the turn of the millennium by Norrie Innes and his firm Rock DCM, who roofed the courtyard, reworked the access and services, and converted the units into workshops and studios. Early on the space pioneered one of Glasgow's first farmers' markets, and over time it secured a permanent entertainment licence that allowed it to plan and promote its own events. Today BAaD operates as a year-round venue hosting live music, weddings, markets of small Scottish businesses, film screenings, and community gatherings, alongside its food and drink offer, which has included the A'Challtainn restaurant and seasonal menus served in the courtyard and backyard. Different parts of the site keep different hours, with the main space opening from Thursday to Sunday and the backyard and cafe trading at weekends. The venue sits at the centre of the regeneration of the Barras and the wider Calton area, long associated with the famous weekend market and its mix of traders, characters, and street culture. BAaD has become a focal point for that creative energy, offering a covered, flexible space that can shift from a casual coffee stop and beer garden to a full concert or celebration. The Barras - the name derives from the barrows once used by its traders - grew up as a working-class street market in the Calton in the early 20th century and remains one of Glasgow's most storied trading places, close to the famous Barrowland Ballroom. BAaD has been a central part of a wider regeneration push, backed by public investment under the Calton Barras Action Plan, that has aimed to turn the area into an events and creative quarter. The site pairs its courtyard venue and restaurant with a container yard and a cluster of studios and workshops let to small creative businesses, so that markets, gigs, and weddings sit alongside everyday workspace and visitors browsing the surrounding market.