The Ubiquitous Chip is a Glasgow institution, a location where countless locals have met the loves of their life. We visit some of these stories ahead of Valentine’s Day.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 You can't go an evening in here without somebody coming in for an anniversary or a date night or something.
00:07 I've known lots of members of staff I've worked with over the last decade,
00:11 who met each other whilst working at the restaurant.
00:14 A couple of whom actually went on, one was a chef and one was a waitress,
00:18 and they went on to have two kids and open their own restaurant after meeting here, so it's quite nice.
00:23 There was one evening when I was working here, a guy came in just by the front door
00:28 and he handed me an outrageously expensive diamond and platinum ring.
00:33 And he said, "Can you hang on to this for me?
00:36 And can you put it in a glass of champagne at the end of the meal so I can propose to my girlfriend?"
00:42 But I was so stressed about losing this ring during the whole shift,
00:46 so I had the whole sommelier team keeping an eye on this ring to the very, very end of the night.
00:52 And I put it in the champagne and I took it over to them,
00:55 and I was just thinking, "Please don't swallow the ring, please don't swallow the ring."
00:59 But she didn't, and he proposed and it was all a good night.
01:02 I think the reason the Chip is so special is because of how long it's been here.
01:06 So it's been here over 50 years, so people have come and met here and then got married,
01:12 and then they come here for their children's graduations, and then their children meet people here.
01:17 So people can come for a romantic meal at the Chip,
01:21 you can meet somebody in the bar at the Chip on a Friday and Saturday night.
01:25 People seem to find the Wee Pub particularly romantic because it's a small little warm place,
01:31 you know, where you can snuggle up and have a whiskey together.
01:34 So I think that's it, people meet in the bars and then they come back to the restaurant for meals
01:39 for all their anniversaries afterwards.
01:41 One of the biggest love stories of the Chip was the fact that the original owner, Ronnie,
01:46 he opened the restaurant over 50 years ago.
01:51 His son came to work here as a chef and met his wife, who was working front of house,
01:58 and they were together and they ran the Chip for a very, very long time.
02:02 And then their son actually ended up working here as a bar manager too,
02:06 so I mean, you can't get much more romantic than that, it's kind of a whole life.
02:11 We've had some rather raucous weddings in the Chip.
02:15 We're doing so many weddings now here because people love it,
02:19 it's such a romantic venue with all the plants and the lights and everything like that.
02:24 But yes, we've had some weddings which have ended up with an awful lot of dancing
02:28 and one particular wedding, there was one of our chefs where two of the guests ended up
02:33 backwards in the koi carp pond, but everybody was still good at the end of the day.