Two of the youth hostels; Nos Da and Bunkhouse both have excellent bars.

The Clwb is certainly successful and profitable - I think it's more a case of Cymdeithas Clwb Cymraeg Caerdydd - the co-op that owns the building and runs the place needing fresh blood.

There is an arguement that as the number of Welsh speakers in Cardiff has grown and venues like the Mochyn Du, Duke of Clarence etc have grown in popularity that the Clwb has outlived its usefulness as a social-centre for Welsh speakers.

It's a crucial venue for the Cardiff music scene - but I can see why the trustees might feel that they could sell or let it to another operator and use the money for other projects to foster the language - a replacement for the former Canton Urdd Centre, for example.

Even if that did happen I doubt any new operator would introduce any major changes. I don't think it's under real threat as a music venue.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but the old Hard Rock Cafe/Polynesia unit is being replaced by something called Brewhouse which promises coffee, food and live music. Posters advertising it up in Brewery Quarter.

Sounds positive..

Not sure if it's been mentioned on here but a new place has opened on St. Mary's Street called Brewhouse. It's a bar/cafe/live music venue.

Yes in the old Hard Rock Cafe, I've been inside, quite nice all in all.

What kind of 'genre' of bar is it? I like the connotations of the name-Brewhouse, and I like live music, so it sounds good.

It's quite nice, I have to say. The serve cocktails and have all sorts of beers on tap. The décor is very ikea esque with lots of wood and they have murals of the maincs, lost prophets and Bassey on the wall. Nice vibe, decent prices and nice to have a live music venue on St. Mary's Street again. Don't remember seeing a planning app for it though

A mural of The Lost Prophets? I'm outraged.

I didn't notice the lost prophets!! Theres is a massive one of Tom Jones

they may have changed them. Didn't notice any Tom Jones when I was there. But regardless, still a nice place. Wish them well.

A new restaurant called Urban Diner is to open in the old Mimosa unit in Pontcanna according to Twitter. Also, hot on the heels of Fire Island and The Smokehouse opening, there's another new BBQ place in Cardiff - in Splott....

http://hangfiresmokehouse.com/

Not sure if this is the right place to put this but I read in the WM (possibly a week ago) that James Sommerin was going to open a restaurant on the ground floor of a development on Penarth Sea Front. You may recall that this was the Edwardian building that was demolished (apart from it's two towers) and is due to be rebuilt in a sort of Edwardian style.

James Sommerin previously had the Crown at Whitebrook which closed recently and did have a Michelin star. Apparently he has been looking at Cardiff for a new restaurant but didn't want to go in the city centre becuase of the drinking culture and so has opted for genteel Penarth. It will one of a number of restaurants along the sea front and possibly with this latest edition could become a bit of a foodie destination.

I'm not sure if the Pier when renovated will also have a bar/restaurant. By the way the renovation of the pier is well under way and when finished will look rather nice.

Here is the link -

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/food-drink/james-sommerin-plans-new-restaurant-2677713

At what point was Pearl Street considered Splott?
I went to Stacey Road Primary School in the 1980s and I had lots of friends who lived in Pearl Street. And everyone considered it Roath.
Now Stacey Road is considered Adamsdown (the official address used to say Roath) and Pearl Street is Splott.
Bah.

20 best pubs in wales, according internet poll below. Cardiff does very well, but this is just some internet nonsense so i dont think we can have much faith in it. I cant believe the Goat Major is really in the top 20 nationally. If this is true, then the nation needs to up its game!

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/20-best-pubs-wales-2013-4008538

1. The Coach (Bridgend)
2. The Bush (St Hilary, Glamorgan)
3. Y Mochyn Du (Cardiff)
4. The Conway (Pontcanna, Cardiff)
5. The Boar’s Head (Pontyclun, RCT)
6. Bunch of Grapes (Pontypridd, RCT)
7. Plough and Harrow (Monknash, Glamorgan)
8. The Sun Inn (Llangollen, Denbighshire)
9. City Arms (Cardiff)
10. The Lansdowne (Cardiff)
11. Blue Anchor (Aberthaw, Glamorgan)
12. Butchers Arms (Llandaff, Cardiff)
13. The Albany (Roath, Cardiff)
14. The Ship Inn (Tresaith, Ceredigion)
15. Ship and Castle (Aberystwyth, Ceredigion)
16. Black Boy Inn (Caernarfon, Gwynedd)
17. The Greyhound (Llanrhidian, Gower)
18. Goat Major (Cardiff)
19. Otley Arms (Treforest, RCT)
20. The Ancient Briton (Penycae, Powys)

Forum geek observation:

I've just noticed that on this forum both the "Bar/club activity in Cardiff" thread and the "City Centre Retail" thread have exactly 65535 views. Crazy!

But I guess this has already changed since I had to read this thread to write this. Maybe I'll even it up and both will be 65536.

Forum geek observation over.

hm, it doesnt seem to be going up. Could this be a maximum listable figure?

65535 in computing is a "round number". It's 2¹⁶-1

It's the 16 bit maximum unsigned integer value limit.


111111111111111 in binary (literally 16 actual "bits" of ones or zeros)
FFFF in hexadecimal
65535 in decimal.

Maybe it's an integer type rather than a double

What?

Huh? I just explained that it's an unsigned 16 bit integer.

Short/Long/double/float etc. are proprietry terms used in specific code that tend to now be used generically.
In C for example, an Integer can be short (at least 16 bit) or long (at least 64 bit), signed (incorporate negative numbers using a 2's compliment system so 1 bit is used for the polarity) or unsigned (so you get to use all 16 bits)

The specific case above, though is that it's just a maxed out 16 bit unsigned integer (which is the proper, generic, non-proprietry term) which can only ever go up to 65535

A "double" data type is floating point, so it wouldn't really be ideally efficient anyway for something that you know is going to be only a whole number that is positive. What's usually referred to a "long integer" I think what you meant, but the name and value is proprietary, so it depends on the coding language.

Anyway it just needs to be an unsigned 32 bit integer, and it'll probably be called a "long unsigned integer" depending on the language. And then it can go up to 4,294,967,295!

Visited The Mount Stuart yesterday. I just happened to be walking past with my friend and they invited us in for free food and drink, as it was a staff training day. What can I say? Without sounding like a snob, I wasn't particularly optimistic about this place, as it's a Wetherspoon's. I was really blown away, though! The staff were exceptionally friendly and attentive, but not annoying (how long will that last?), the food was delicious (served on posh-looking plates) and the decor was of a really high standard (looks very downtown New York with its warehouse look from the outside). It felt like a Brains refurb. Really impressed. Let's hope it doesn't attract any riff-raff.

I also want to highly recommend my friend's Venezuelan place on Splott Road, which is next to The Imperial. For a tenner I had a starter and a main, which were both fish dishes. I had a tuna steak for my main, and as most of you may know, tuna can be very dry. This was perhaps the tastiest, most juicy tuna I've ever had. The portions were very generous. Overall, it was excellent value for money.

Cheers Mo - I was hoping we'd get some feedback on this new pub, and that sounds very encouraging!! As for "riff-raff" I guess this will be a lot to do with the prices. Maybe this will be a more expensive wetherspoons, I didn't know they existed until I went to the one in Gatwick airport!!
As for your friend's restaurant - feel free to give it a plug on here!! and it sounds great! - Tuna that isn't dry is right up my street

great theory. I don't code in C thought I code in VBA and VB.net. when declaring a type that may have a value greater than 65,535 I would use a double. apologies if that annoys you its just the way I write code.

I think it's only their airport pubs which are more expensive (apart from Cardiff airport of course, which doesn't have one). I'd be very surprised if the Mount Stuart was more expensive than the others- the Bay is hardly exclusive.

I cycled past the old takeaway part this morning and erroneously concluded that it was not open because the windows were still covered up from inside. Now I realise that that just means that this will no longer be an entrance to the pub.

Just come back from there, was packed (nearly all tables occupied. The decor is great with amny different areas to the place, harry Ramsdens were really badly using the space! The outside upstairs terrace is nice but there is minimal seating, also very little outside seating downstairs either, i guess they weren't allowed to have too much outside seating to stop too much disruption and could only have as much as was there before. Food was Ok for weatherspoons, nothing to compete with the other restaurants but Salt and Terra nova have got some strong competition now!

Jantra,

It's not a "theory", it's true. I told you - the terms you are using aren't generic - other languages have different data types and descriptions for them, but 65535 is a maxed out unsigned 16 bit integer - and that's a generic non-propriety term.

If you were coding in VBA, there is no data type that exists that maxes out at 65535 because their equivalent of a 16 bit integer (propriety term: "Integer") is signed, so the range is -32768 to +32767 since the first bit signifies the polarity.

If you use their propriety term: "double", it's incorrect for the reasons I already explained - it's for floating point values, and you only require whole numbers i.e. integers - plus, you're wasting 8 bytes at a time!

Best VBA option would be VBA propriety term: "Long". Since they don't do unsigned integers, that would at least give you -2147483648 to + 2147483647.

For VB.Net the data types are all different again. The propriety term for the 4 byte signed -2147483648 to + 2147483647 above is "Integer", whilst "Long" in VB.net is 8 bytes (signed) to give -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807. Once again "double" is for 8 byte floating point values.

I don't know why we are arguing this, it's well off-topic, but heh ho.

I'm not arguing, hence why I said great theory - I was agreeing with you. However the point was lost on you that I don't have to worry about memory management unlike in c or c++ hence why I'll use a double

I noticed Pulse on Churchill Way has been advertising that its under new management and has just undergone a £100,000 refurbishment. Popped in yesterday and have to say it's looking very nice, all new seating and wooden banisters, feels quite high end but the prices are still reasonable. Surely one of the longest running businesses to operate that unit, as it used to change names so often. I remember it as Winstons!

As a complete contrast 'Wow Bar' just opposite is looking in a very sorry state, with random flags draped over the front of the building, and banners covering gaps in the sign where it has fallen down. Looks like its not long for the world.

New management? Well, its probably a new company, but I bet its the same people behind it!

I think it's the same company but definitely a new manager as I saw him there. Australian guy I think.

Ah, a new "day to day" manager.. the people at the top (i.e. the 'owners') are still the same I think. Its not quite the same as when a pub says its under "new management" - which usually means a new pub "landlord"/"landlady". In this case, if I'm right, its more like changing a manager at a Wetherspoons pub. I doubt you'd expect a sign saying "under new management" in such circumstances.

Ah right. Either way, seems much improved to me. It was rather run down the last time I went there.

Well, I visited it tonight, just to take a look while visiting The Food Festival.

I have to say, I'm no fan if Wetherspoon's, but I was hoping it would serve to provide a bit of competition to the two appallingly overpriced Brains pubs.

Well, I didn't like it at all. As soon as we walked in, we were hit with a cacophony of noise. Not music, obviously, just the racket of an establishment with a low ceiling, concrete walls and raicous crowds. It sounded like a swimming pool and looked like a multi storey car park (wrong on so many levels, you might say )

Another gripe; it's brand new and just opened, it's one of the warmest weekends of the year so far, do they think it might have been a good idea to switch on the air-conditioning units that they've clearly had installed at great expense? If not on a night like this, when it's packed and boiling hot, then when? I mean, what's the point in installing the bloody things?!

Terrible terrible place, but I suppose the beer's cheaper than the competition.

Simon

If I were you I'd give the application as PR manager for Visit Wales a miss

I too wasn't happy about this place opening on my experience of other Wetherspoons, but today the aircon was working, it was packed but not unpleasant, the food and drink are reasonable prices and portions, the staff were charming. It's been designed so that the noise goes into the water area rather than the residential stuff behind. I suspect it'll take a lot of custom off other similar places in the Bay. The only bad thing will be if its 99p filter coffee stuffs up the trade of the lovely independent Coffee Mania.

The Promised Land is still closed and looks like it has been stripped out now. It closed after the company that owned the lease went into administration, which is a shame as it was a nice little bar with lots of potential.

This will irritate those that hate the dreaded saturation policies in Cardiff.

Fat Cats Lounge on Greyfriars Road vacated the property several months ago, and Glam nightclub (which is above the unit) took on the lease with a plan to extend to the ground floor.

Glam applied to amend the planning slightly, and in the process it was discovered that Fat Cats had only ever been granted planning for a trial 12 month period, around 6 years ago. When that expired, nothing was ever renewed. So Fat Cats have been operating without planning permission for around 5 years.

As soon as this was realised, Glam applied for planning, and the council REFUSED on the grounds of it being within the saturation zone (despite the saturation zone being a licensing issue rather than planning, and the venue is fully licensed)

The application has now gone to appeal and it will show the council up as the police have confirmed that the premises has NOT ONE incident against it in the 6 years of operating.

Meanwhile the unit lies empty.

Incidentally, planning was also refused to the Jessops site for the proposed Cocktail Lounge on Churchill Way for the same reason, despite a licence having already been granted before the saturation policy came into place.

I've got it on good authority that the company behind Buffalo and Ten Feet Tall is due to go into administration on Monday.

That could be the worst news...ever??

Bloody hell that's a surprise, their bars always appear to be doing well.

Aren't they also behind Fire Island on Westgate Street, which has just opened in the last year?

Over-extended themselves?

Even if this happened would it mean that all establishments closed?

Or would they stay open while they tried to sell?

administration is not all bad news, it just means they have appointed a specialist firm to try and arrange a deal with all creditors - so they may carry on trading, they may close or each business may be sold off to third parties.

I don't think Fire Island has done particularly well, and has maybe been their downfall.

Really?

Not sure about Fire Island but Buffalo and 10 Feet Tall seem to be trading as normally. Administrators have definitely been called in as I've seen some tweets from some disgruntled suppliers.

Fire Island has indeed shut. It was always a big ask wedged between a Weatherspoons and the City Arms. It probably pulled them under.

The building was in a state with problems on the roof. Expensive stuff. More details on the cash involved here:

"£250,000 Wales SME Investment Fund fires Beatbox Bars’ expansion

28/11/2012

The company behind two popular Cardiff venues, Buffalo and 10 Feet Tall, has launched a third in the city.

Beatbox Bars (Beatbox) has used a £250,000 debt investment from the Wales SME Investment Fund managed by Finance Wales to launch its new Fire Island venue in Cardiff’s busy Castle Quarter."

http://www.financewales.co.uk/news_and_media/press_releases/281112_beatbox_bars.aspx

What are the implications of adminstration?

Three of the better bars in Cardiff (although each had their flaws) and a local business as well

Bad news. I loved Fire Island, although I've been surprised how many people who I thought would also love it and didn't..I thought it was spot on really although maybe a tad pricey.

If all three of the beatbox bars shut, that is very bad news. One closing (and no doubt reopening in a few months as something else) is all part of the ever changing night life of any city, but three independently owned venues closing in one go is bad news indeed.