Glasgowist: Cooking for good with a new food project

There’s huge uncertainty in the supply chain, surging prices and the shrapnel of debt and disappointment from the last two years in Scottish hospitality.

Every business decision is made with a sense of foreboding about what lies ahead.

Yet I find Joanna Nethery reassuringly upbeat before the opening of her latest venture, a project that will brighten the day while supporting the local community.

Guid Egg welcomes its first visitors today, a sister venue to Five March, the friendly, neighbourhood bar and restaurant on Elderslie Street. A delivery of tables has just arrived after a 12 week wait, adding to the positive mood – “it’s starting to feel like a real place,” Joanna says.

Joanna Nethery

Five March has become one of the city’s best spots for dazzling small plates and quirky cocktails since it opened three years ago.

Last year Joanna and her business partner Peter Mackay, the restaurant’s head chef, added Morning Glory – a brunch, coffee and cake cafe on Great Western Road – to their West End offering.

Now comes Guid Egg, across the lane from Five March, and a venue that will give the team a new sense of purpose.

“It was a wee sandwich and coffee shop called The Mews that was there for the last 15 years,” Joanna explains.

“I would run in for a toastie on the way to work or we would have meetings in there, we got to know the owner, Marie Claire, really well.

“When she was leaving, she hoped we’d be able to do something with the space.”

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The project begins with a mostly takeaway brunch menu from 7am until 2pm, Monday to Friday. One of their chefs is currently on paternity leave but when he returns at the start of May there will be a full-service at weekends, bookable online.

They will also introduce the community support side of things. “The way things are going, life will be really difficult for a lot of people.

“If you leave Five March to go home and you turn right then you probably have enough money but if you walk out and turn left then you are going towards a part of the city that still really struggles,” Joanna says.

“A couple of nights a week we will have a drop-in community evening where we will have free hot meals available to anyone and everyone. You just have to come in and we will serve you.

“We hope to expand that over the months and years ahead into providing a food bank and a clothes bank.

“We are starting with Mondays and Wednesdays in the evening.

“We will be using the social media side of things with Five March to reach out and find specific items that could help someone.

“It’s something that we really believe in and it would be nice to think that business isn’t always about money.

“The cost of living is incomparable to five years ago and the only way we are going to get through this is to look out for one another.”

Five March worked with the Kindness Homeless Street Team during lockdown, cooking up to 800 meals a day.

With the restart of the restaurant, the team still wanted to do something to help people in the city.

“This is going to be ideal for us, we can have our breakfast situation in the morning then turn it over for drop-ins during the evening.

“I’d love to have community groups use the space for free for their own projects.

“We’d like to have classes, help with asylum applications, work with local kids who aren’t getting a break.

“Hopefully we can turn it into something really cool, hence the reason it’s called Guid Egg.”

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Since sharing the idea, Joanna has been inundated with offers of help and volunteers, she says: “I think it emphasises how aware people are of what’s coming with the cost-of-living crisis.

“It’s great to see how compassionate people are, I think Glasgow is a very progressive city in that regard.”

Joanna takes a realistic view when looking at the immediate future of her business but is motivated in the possibilities the new enterprise brings.

“I don’t see Five March making a penny over the next three years because the cost of everything is so high, there’s no way that you can.

“I’m totally fine with that as long as there is something else going on alongside that gives it all meaning. Otherwise, it’s just work and frustration.

“We want to keep our staff happy, we still have most of the team that we opened with three years ago and we will continue to concentrate on that.

“Now we’ve built that group of people we are excited about what we can build together.

“It’s difficult, but it feels great, it feels very peaceful somehow, to be doing something you believe in.”