Home to Glasgow's cheapest pub lunch The Star Bar has been sold to a new owner

The Star Bar, a wedge of a pub in a triangular tenement building on Eglinton Street that has offered Glasgow's cheapest three-course lunch for more than 40 years, has a new owner. The set menu was started by previous owners Jim Brogan and Denis Connachan. It was continued Paul Marletta and his sister Giovanna, who have now sold the pub to Glasgow businessman David Low.

Low, who helped broker the takeover of Celtic FC by Fergus McCann in 1994 to rescue the club from the brink of collapse, sold The Arlington in Woodlands last year. On acquiring a piece of Glasgow hospitality history, he said: “I’ve always had a keen interest in Glasgow’s iconic bars, of which The Star Bar is a fine example and there will be more to follow. Customers can be rest assured that I have no plans to change its distinctive character – or its famous lunch offer.”

Sausage hot pot, roast beef and macaroni cheese are popular main courses from the lunch menu, served with chips or boiled potatoes and gravy, most often preceded by a bowl of soup and followed by a portion of rice pudding with tinned fruit. The Star Bar also hosts a long standing karaoke night, alongside its affordable lunches that have become a part of the community.

Former owner Paul had previously told me: "We do try to provide a service for more mature customers, it's cheaper for them to get a meal in here than cooking or buying things, especially with the way prices are going. We've been doing it for a long time, it's quite successful. We don't really make money out of the food side of things but we are hoping people will come back and then of course we have the karaoke in the evening, people come from far and wide for that."

"Don't you think local pubs are disappearing fast?" Paul added, when we sat together three years ago. "It's all becoming the same thing. I like the fact this bar represents the past and the present in Glasgow." He gestures towards the wall, "that's a wedding picture from a couple, they met in here as the man used to cut through the pub to get to his bus in the evenings, so years later they came back here for the wedding reception. Lots of people meet here and it becomes important to them. That's the real story of a local bar."

The Star bar has seen off at least two recessions, the loss of the local printing industry which had brought it a consistent trade, a railway hub relocation and John Menzies factory closure that changed the fabric of the area around the pub. It somehow continues to offer a timeless Glasgow welcome to those who enjoy it, and that is what has now been entrusted to the new owner.

The Star Bar is at 537-539 Eglinton Street, G5 9RN.