PUBS group Clover has injected further cash into Belfast’s oldest tavern to enable it to comply with current Covid legislation and open with a new outdoor space and food offer.
And the launch of White's Garden on High Street, adjacent to White's Tavern in Winecellar Entry, is creating 50 jobs, according to its owners.
Clover Group, run by four well-known hospitality and leisure entrepreneurs, has already spent £1 million on 400-year-old White's, which it acquired last year to add to an existing portfolio including Henry’s, The Jailhouse, Margot's and Fountain Tavern.
But it has gone beyond its previously agreed plans to add the extra outdoor venue, opening next Friday (September 18), which it says can "act as a beacon for the city centre".
Designed to bring the indoors out, and supporting social distancing, the 2,500 sq ft space will feature a low-level bar with built-in sleepers, slate floor, a feature fireplace on entry and reclaimed barn doors, providing a warehouse feel in the heart of Belfast.
An open plan kitchen will serve pizza, flatbreads and the bar’s signature Irish dishes, supported by table service using a food-ordering app.
Clover’s plans for White’s Gardens follows the success of its Bone Yard outdoor venue on Bedford Street which opened for the first time in July.
Director Mark Beirne said: “This is the last of our six venues in Belfast to reopen and, in many ways it's the most important.
“We knew we needed to be creative and resourceful to secure a spatial environment to reopen White’s with an new outdoor venue, but we also knew it was incumbent upon us to maintain and add to the history and legacy of this outstanding Belfast bar.
“We are excited about what we have achieved and about the opportunities that White’s and White’s Garden will provide for our customers in a post-Covid world.
“Not only are we bringing back the vibrancy of the bar of a few months ago, but we are re-igniting the legacy of the outdoor communal gatherings of the surrounding streets of the 1700s which housed the wine merchants of the day.”
