The fairground has finally come to town in Telford, and this one is here to stay.
It's been two and a half years since plans were revealed for a new bar and restaurant under the Travelodge in Telford's Southwater.
Those having passed the venue over the 12 months will be well familiar with the motif, as the owners have done little to hide their plans for a fairground-themed bar.
Albert & Co Fairground is the second premises in Southwater operated by Albert's Shed after their live music venue opened next to the ice rink in November 2019.
It's been two and a half years since plans were revealed for a new bar and restaurant under the Travelodge in Telford's Southwater.
Those having passed the venue over the 12 months will be well familiar with the motif, as the owners have done little to hide their plans for a fairground-themed bar.
Albert & Co Fairground is the second premises in Southwater operated by Albert's Shed after their live music venue opened next to the ice rink in November 2019.
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NewsTranscript
00:00It started off as an empty unit, it's been an empty unit for quite a number of years certainly since
00:05the Travelodge has been in residence above it and obviously we operate Albert's Shed just opposite
00:12and for quite some time we heard rumours that different people were going to take it on
00:17and far from that being competition for Albert's Shed we felt that the more reasons for people to
00:23visit Southwater the better, the better for us and better for all the other tenants as well.
00:27So we were quite disappointed when the final rumours that we heard didn't come to fruition
00:33so we approached the council who are the landlords here and also at Albert's Shed and said look you
00:39know what what's the deal. Initially we thought it might not be cost effective and then we kind
00:46of went back and thought about it again and thought about it again I thought well look if
00:48nobody's going to open it as a feeder bar then maybe it's something that we could do
00:54and the rest is history as they say just a long history because we've never done a project like
01:00this before we've generally in the past we've taken on existing venues and we've adapted them
01:05to suit our needs this one was an empty shell so we came up against building control and all
01:10this stuff which we just don't we're just not okay with that kind of thing we are now.
01:17Your outfit is giving a bit of an indication as is the name of the venue what's the inspiration
01:22what's it about where did that come from? We just wanted something different really I mean we just
01:26wanted something which kind of gave us some identity we wanted it to be in the same spirit of
01:32fun as Albert's Shed is in terms of live music and people coming out and having an experience
01:36not just going out for a beer or going for food because we do offer food here and I suppose it's
01:42like everything else we did some brainstorming we had some initial ideas because it's close to
01:47the water we thought what about Yacht Club and then come on we're in the middle of Telford you
01:51know this isn't going to work and I suppose like all creative things and all good things that we
01:57do at Albert's Shed it kind of it wasn't one person's idea we kind of more about a fairground
02:02what about circus what about this what about that and it kind of and as always we we just kind of
02:08add stuff and if it doesn't work we change it a little bit I'd love to stand here now and say
02:12we've got a master plan but we just make it up as we go along. Do you have a master plan opening
02:19events that will be held here? Yeah absolutely we're going to be open we're limited to midnight
02:24closing because there's a hotel upstairs we knew that from the start that's fine and so we're
02:29looking to capitalize on mornings and open from eight o'clock for breakfast we've got some some
02:34really good offers coming up introductory offers on the breakfasts and they're just somewhere
02:39somewhere fun with a you know a high level of service that you can come as a family during
02:46the day and then come the night time it becomes a little bit more sophisticated it's kind of a
02:51development really of what we did in Shrewsbury in terms of Albert and Co Frankville which was
02:55previously the poor house we want to do the milkshakes the cocktails all of that kind of
03:02fun stuff which we can't really go into you know on a large scale in Albert's Shed because that's
03:09all about the live music which is great and we just want to use this as a as an opportunity to
03:14develop that area of the business and we've got some really really good people on board to do that
03:19so monday to sunday yeah monday to sunday yeah i mean like everything else um we'll see how it goes
03:26i mean times are hard um post covid um a lot of places don't open seven days anymore we're gonna
03:32kind of go in um you know go in hard from day one and if we can uh if we can get enough people
03:37through the door then we'll open seven days definitely so a lot of the stuff you've got
03:41inside has come from fairgrounds is that right yeah that's correct i mean we don't um we we've
03:46adopted the same approach as we do with our music venues where we don't go to uh you know an expensive
03:52designer we kind of we tend to spend our time on ebay and facebook sellers and all of that kind of
03:57thing and we just grab real stuff um and i don't think you can replicate that um as an example most
04:02of the wood that you see inside with all the lights on came from uh from a seafront in wales
04:07it was a rona coastal or some kind of attraction and you can't replicate that you know 50 plus
04:15years of being out in all the elements and being repainted again and again and and i went to pick
04:19it up in a big van and brought it back how do we clean it up how do we how do we repair how do it
04:24and it's like well we don't we just put it up and and it's authentic you know and a local artist
04:29has done quite a bit of the artwork inside yeah there's a lot of original artwork uh katie romney
04:33from kr creative has done um the majority of the artwork inside katie we've worked with for a number
04:39of years on on different venues absolutely brilliant um total space cadet um in terms
04:44of the ideas and everything and that kind of fits in with with the way we are
05:03me