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City centre bar to reopen after £700k facelift

Oct 18 2009 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

AROUND 70 jobs are to be created through a pub giant’s plans for a derelict listed building.

Sports Cafe

J D Wetherspoon has pledged to transform the former Sports Cafe into a vibrant part of Newcastle’s social scene after taking over the majestic Grainger Street business almost a year after it suddenly closed down.

When the Sports Cafe went into administration in January 2008 with bank debts of more than £10m, the pub was placed into the hands of Yellowhammer Bars.

But the Grade II listed building was left to languish for months on end, with plants, weeds and birds nests growing out of its once immaculate 19th Century facade.

Developers for Wetherspoon have now moved into the dusty building, however, and have begun work on a £700,000 scheme to restore it to its former glory.

They hope to open the bar – which will be a Lloyds Bar – in the first half of 2010.

The bar will be called The John Edward Watson, the architect for the original building which was a bank, in keeping with Wetherspoon’s policy of naming pubs after local people or those who have a connection with the building.

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