The redeveloped Pleasance Café and Bar opened on Monday October 30 with a launch party to celebrate the project’s completion.
“The refurbishment is really cool, it looks more modern,” Dan Doyle, Student Association Societies Coordinator, told The Student. The Student Association President, Patrick Kilduff also felt positive. “It’s a fantastic evening filled with great people celebrating,” he said.
The project has been ongoing since 2016 and spans five buildings in the Pleasance area.
Guy Matzkin came to the grand opening with friends and told The Student he felt “mind blown.”
He continued, “We really like the new place and the new interior but we really miss the old time favourite of a fiver for a burger and a pint.”
Other students also voiced their concerns.
Paul Sinclair, committee member of the University of Edinburgh Folk Society said, “The Folk society have had a room to themselves now for forty or fifty years now.”
“We had agreed with [EUSA] at the start that they would refurbish it and give it back to us. Not exclusively to us but we would have priority room bookings.”
They were happy to share it with other musical societies, he explains, because they could share instruments and were only using the room four times a week.
However, the society then lost their priority booking rights and were no longer allowed to keep their instruments in the room.
Sinclair alleges that the Student Association binned things that were kept in the room and reduced their storage space to a locker in the other building.
President Patrick Kilduff confirmed that there was locker storage space for societies in the other building.
Despite saying that the building “looks smarter”, Sinclair believes it has “lost a lot of the character it had before.”
He described members of his society hauling instruments that they have inadequate storage space for around the city.
“Along the way there have been certain compromises that have had to been made,” he said, shaking his head.
Image: Sara Konradi / Photography Editor