Merchant Square

Such a wonderful haven from the rainy weather, and a clever re-​use of an old building. Beautifully maintained and decorated with a central cobbled area, surrounded by restaurants, bars and cafes.
At the weekend there are often markets where local artists and craftspeople show and sell their work, and special events happen in the square (for example it was a Ryder Cup fan zone, and a venue for some Glasgow 2014 Festival 2014 arts events and performances). It is often the focus of events when the Merchant City Festival is on.
In the daytime it is worth going for that «inside outside» feeling, at night the roof shows the sky through the fairy light ceiling. Magic!

Esta é uma das grandes mudanças de Glasgow. O que antes era um mercado hoje se transformou em um espaço com excelentes opções de restaurantes, oferecendo lunch menu com preço médio de 8 libras para 2 courses. Um lugar imperdível para quem visita Glasgow, com a sensação de espaço «aberto» aquecido e coberto.

Glaswegians maybe now take it for granted and I would not really go there on a night out, but I quite like taking visitors to Glasgow to Merchant square. They always seem to be quite surprised when walking through the centre. It seems so different to the city outside.
I probably would not drink or eat in many of the businesses these days, but the place really does have an individual atmosphere to it. This is particularly true at winter when it is freezing outside and the lights and decorations are up inside. During the day at weekends there is quite often a mini market going on that is selling art or jewellery.
Nice place and worth a look if your a visitor to the city looking to escape the cold and rain.

Merchant Square is a handy spot — whether you’re in need of a bite to eat, or a drink; a cash machine or a loo, you can find it all here. You might even want to just escape the dreich weather and come in for a seat inside!
While I’m not the biggest fan of most of the businesses that are attached to Merchant Square, it’s still a cool place for a visit. I particularly like the weekend craft market that’s on (every Saturday & Sunday from around midday to 6pm) which I’ll review separately.
There’s handy cash machines (not sure where there are any others in Merchantt City!) and the loos are always pretty clean. There is sometimes special events on in the Square and it’s worth looking out for these — we went to a gig in the Square once and it was really enjoyable as it had a bit of an outside feel to it, without it being freezing cold.

I pass through here at least a couple of times a week — there are 2 ATMs inside.
The building itself is awesome, with loads of restaurants and bars lining the square.
Every weekend, there’s a craft fair set up within the square — in the run up to xmas, the number of stalls have massively increased. There are loads of jewellery and painting/​print tables. The quality of the crafts on display is mighty impressive, and quite reasonably priced — I got my mum a beautiful hand-​painted necklace a few weeks ago.
On weekend evenings, the square is often host to jazz/​swing bands and things like ballroom dancing.
I need a reason to actually eat in one of the restaurants here…

The restaurants inside Merchant Square are always it seems booked solid. We’ve never been able to catch a spot when we are downtown on the weekend, especially at the most delectable looking places. The market is always nice to see inclusive of delicious cupcakes (victoria sponge, lemon curd and many others) and a chocolate maker that has alot of interesting flavours (yuzu, ginger, etc). I think it’s a great market to get christmas gifts or gifts in general if that’s what you are looking for.
I’m not sure if the vendors take credit cards so make sure you bring some cash just in case.

I visited for the first time and felt I could have been anywhere — it was lovely. Enjoyed coffee and watched the world go by. I’ll definitely return.

LOVED THE ATMOSPHERE.
someone said it looks like vegas. haha, not really.
this place is right in the heart of the city centre.
super convenient to walk to.
its an indoor place with about 6 restaurants.
its easy to jump from one restaurant to another.
all the restaurants are super understanding about just sitting for drinks or eating meals.
def a place to check out especially because everything besides food places in glasgow close by 5 pm -.-

The fashionable and trendy Merchant City is an integral part of Glasgow’s City Centre, and is teeming with a number of bars, tasty restaurants and cafes. You’re truly spoilt for choice. However, to help you with your decision, heading into Merchant Square at the heart of this area, limits the choice for you. Merchant Square is housed in part of Glasgow’s old Fruit Market that dates back to the 1800s. It plays host to a variety of bars, restaurants and cafes under one roof. It features a covered courtyard (sometimes decked out with fairy lights), which is great on (rare) sunny days, but also provides shelter from the rain or winter weather. Sneak into any one of the bars or restaurants, or do some people watching from the benches in the middle of the square. The romantic Victorian architecture is still apparent today with its preservation that links the present to the past. Here you’ll find Bar Square, Beer Café, Lombardi’s, Sizzlers, El Sabor, Metropolitan, Byblos, and Arisaig.
The sweet and lowdown: From drinks, cocktails, tapas, steak & seafood, Italian, and even a night of dancing… it has something for just about anyone.

If you’re meeting friends in town, and none of you can decide where to go (and we all know how annoying it is when you’re standing in the middle of the pavement trying to decide), just walk in the direction of Merchant Square.
This huge indoor building has got everything you might be looking for in a night out. And if you can’t decide after that, then I can’t help you.
It is easy access to a handful of great restaurants and bars; each of which have their own outer entrances, but also, and ideally, an inner ‘sidewalk’ café feel to it.
Indeed, walking into Merchant square feels like walking into a small community.
Here’s a neat party trick: go into the centre of Merchant Square. Close your eyes, point, and spin around. There. You’ve picked the place.

Lovely and glamorous inside, Merchant Square is a great place to spend a whole evening. It holds a selection of good pubs, bars and restaurants, and I doubt you will be dissapointed with what you find here.
There is always a good atmosphere in the building, during the day and in the evening, when the building is filled with merry revellers.
My personal favourite place in here is Metropolitan, which is a very swanky cocktail bar and restaurant. It is gorgeous, luxurious and the cocktails are the best I have ever had. It is not the cheapest, but it is certainly worth the money. I am not a fan of Sizzler’s Steak House, which you may have noticed from my long winded review!
I love the wee stalls in here, especially at Christmas, where you can pick up some seriously unique and stunning art and jewellery. They even had a tablet stall the last time I was there. Drool!
A fantastic place to socialise in Glasgow, and there really is something for everyone.

I’m not sure why but, day after day I walk past interesting restaurants and bars I want to check out and then by tea time I completely forget about them and end up here by default.
I guess the reason I come to Merchant Square is because it’s indoors, there are a few good eateries within metres of each other and the atmosphere is great.
If you have money to burn then there is nothing better than going for some tapas then sitting outside the Beer Café with a drink you’ve never heard of and soaking up the night life.
The cobbles and fairy lights have me feeling like I’m maybe on holiday, which is what you need after a long working week.

It’s cracking in here. A world away.
I often find myself wandering through here without realising, even though it adds time to how long it takes me to go from A to B. It’s just so nice, bustling with life.
There’s alot of cracking places in here where you can have a super chilled out Saturday afternoon with some nice drinks and just tune out. There’s usually some interesting stalls on the go with paintings, arts and crafts and such.
There’s occasionally some events on in here and it can be pretty magical.
If you are ever down this way, stick your head in!

One of the great things about Glasgow is its diversity. While it is a city where the underground thrives, with plenty of rock venues, dive bars and hip joints, places like Merchant Square do sophistication, and end up outclassing anything similar that Edinburgh might have.
The Merchant Square is sometimes a performance space– most often during the Merchant City Festival– but is essentially a cobbled courtyard, surrounded by bars and restaurants. Pick well, and you can sit in a tapas bar, enjoying the sparkling ambiance. Pick not so well– well, you end up in a generic, but perfectly nice, chain pub.
The Merchant Square ring-​fences this area from the rowdy enthusiasm of the city’s nightlife. I have used it as a good place to sit on a bench and have a polite, middle-​class row with a girlfriend, show another friend that Glasgow can do charming, and had a passable tapas meal. it has enough of a romantic aura to be quite good for all three.

The first night I ever spent in Glasgow, I was taken to Merchant’s Square by my boyfriend. Men, take note, almost every female will be very impressed if you take her the Merchant’s Square — ESPECIALLY if she has never come across it before.
The large imposing Greek style building of the Goma stands in the middle of the square, and it’s surrounded by impressive buildings hosting swanky restaurants and bars. As it gets dark, the square reveals it’s greatest attribute — the hundreds of fairy-​like-​lights that stretch between the roof of the Goma and the buildings that surround it. Want me to describe it in a word? Magical.
As well as being a tourist’s dream — Merchant Square is also a haven for wannabe food critics, as it plays host to some of the city’s best restaurants.

I’d lived in Glasgow for a good few years before even finding out about this place, quite surprising as it’s actually very impressive, with the cobblestones and mix of bars and eateries giving it an almost continental feel.
I’ve already reviewed a good few of the places in here, the best ones being Beer Café, The Metropolitan and Sizzlers. There’s also a tapas bar and an «Italian» restaurant called Lombardi’s where frankly I doubt they could even point to Rome on a map. The presence of an O’Neill’s also lowers the tone slightly, but thankfully not too much.
Even if the venues are a slightly mixed bag it does look and feel like a very nice place to be, and a steak at Sizzlers followed by a cocktail at The Metropolitan is as good a way to spend an evening as any round here.

This place is quite unusual and so I tend to go whenever I have visitors to the city.
It’s a stunning covered courtyard surrounded by various bars, restaurants and shops. Originally built in the 1800s as part of Glasgow’s Fruit Market, it’s a focal point of the Merchant City and it ties in well to the surrounding architecture. The Square is an excellent place to go if you’re undecided of what sort of bar/​restaurant you’re looking for (there are various ones all under one roof from tapas to cocktails). But also this place is excellent if you fancy a pub crawl but want to escape Glasgow’s weather.

It’s just so preeeeettty…
The lights, the atmosphere, the music… when I step in here, I think of Christmas (must be something to do with the fairy lights and polished cobble-​stone floor).
As Liz points out, it’s home to loads of dfferent places — expensive cocktail bars, tapas restaurants and an O’Neills (randomly) — but they all seem to fit.
Some time can be spent drifting from bar to bar (or restaurant to restaurant), stopping to enjoy the view every now and again.
Anyone found the crocodile yet?

We went here for Stu’s birthday for a meal and a couple of drinks. From the outside it looks quite unassuming, but inside, the ambience is almost magical.
A net of fairy lights adorns the ceiling and the cobbled floor of the courtyard is polished to a high shine. There are around 10 bars and restaurants in here, ranging from steak to tapas to a simple coffee. It isn’t necessarily expensive either, with a branch of O’Neills offering meals for as little as £3.45.
You don’t even have to fork out to come and see it: there are a few benches in the middle of the court and menus outside each restaurant, although do watch out for the odd lurking waiter that pounces and tries to talk you into their restaurant.

This used to be a varied shopping centre — now it is a hub of restaurants, coffe shops and bars. That’s not a bad thing, but it is a bit of a shame to see the little boutiques forced out by rocketing rents. The restaurants are good, there is an O’Neils bar and an El Sabor. The middle of the centre is a cobbled square undercover, with lovely lights twinkling under the ceiling, giving it a romantic feel. The centre is open late and is a great place to spend a relaxing evening before moving onto a more lively bar or nightclub.