Sticking with tradition

Three generations of the Bryson family are behind the success of this well-known venue in the heart of Magherafelt…

The mid-Ulster community of Magherafelt is surprisingly well catered to in terms of its hospitality offering.

At the last official census, this bustling little market town was home to fewer than 9000 people, yet today, it boasts a startling array of top bars and guest accommodation and an award-winning retail offering not to mention LCN’s Nightclub of the Year, Secrets.

Among the best of its most established venues is Bryson’s bar and restaurant, which has been drawing customers to the same spot on Union Road for three generations.

These days, the responsibility for day-to-day running of the premises falls to Niall Bryson (40), grandson of the business’s founders, Paddy and Kathleen Bryson, who acquired the bar from its former owners, the Devlin family, in 1939.

At that time, the venue consisted of just the little front bar – which is still in operation today – and an adjacent confectionery store, which was located in the spot where the Wine Box off licence now stands.

Speaking to LCN recently, Niall revealed that for his grandparents, their first foray into the licensed trade was meant only to be a temporary venture:

“Paddy was from Limavady and Kathleen came from Antrim, so Magherafelt was in the middle,” he said. “They originally intended to gather up the money they needed to get back into the family business of farming, but that just never happened.”

Niall’s grandfather ran the bar with only a few minor changes right up until 1972, while Kathleen looked after the confectionery store next door.

Then Niall’s parents, Peter and Patricia took the business on, signalling the start of Bryson’s evolution into the popular entertainment complex it is today.

Patricia came from a strong hospitality background. She was one of the first people to work at the Europa in Belfast as a staff trainer under its former owners, Grand Metropolitan Trading and she stayed on when the premises was acquired by Hastings Hotels.

“She had it in her head that she and dad would expand the business here in Magherafelt and in 1982, they decided to do that,” recalls Niall. “They built on a lounge bar and restaurant at the rear and changed the name of the venue to the Town and Country Inn.”

Patricia was also a qualified cook and when the Town and Country Inn launched its new lunch menu, it was the first licensed premises in Magherafelt to offer food.

Also in 1982, the confectionery store finally closed and the Wine Box off licence opened on the spot.

These days, the bar has a well-earned reputation as a destination for good live music and it was during this programme of modernisation in the early 80s that this tradition finds its roots:

“The new lounge could hold around 100 people,” recalled Niall. “It was used as a restaurant during the week and on Friday and Saturday night, there was live music. During the 80s, we ran a folk night which turned out to be very successful. And in the 90s, dad started to bring in more bands on a Friday and Saturday night.

“We had everything, rock, blues, jazz. He got quite friendly with the people in The Rotterdam and The Empire and some of the acts that they had would come down and play here as well, we had the likes of Henry McCullough, Four Men and a Dog, Rob Strong and General Fiasco started in here. Dad had lots of vision, you just didn’t know what was going to come up next.”

Today, Bryson’s is still justifiably well-known for its live music nights – its weekly line-up includes a traditional music evening on Thursdays with local performers; Pandy Walsh, a local singer-songwriter who also works the bar at Bryson’s, appears regularly there and Saturday evening is disco night upstairs with a live DJ.

But Niall admits that in terms of live music, the heady days of the 80s and 90s at Bryson’s are probably past:

“When he smoking ban came in [2005], the live music took a bit of a dip,” he remarks. “We found that after that, everyone would be in the beer garden, the bands weren’t getting the same attention and there wasn’t the same buzz. We’d had 15 fantastic years out of it, but there just wasn’t the same buzz.”

Niall Bryson is a graphic designer by trade. He worked at that for seven years after leaving university, but he was in Australia in 2006 when his parents began to talk seriously about retirement from the family business. He is the eldest of four siblings, none of the others was interested in becoming involved with the bar and Niall realised then that he didn’t want to see Bryson’s sold.

So he returned home and worked in the bar until 2008, using the time to investigate how best to expand the business:

“I knew there was a serious number of people coming into the town and I felt that we should be getting a bigger share of the business that was coming into the town,” recalled Niall. “At that time, we extended our lunchtime food trade into the evenings and we began to open on Sundays.

“Then, in 2008, we invested £1.5m in the premises, opening the following year under the original Bryson’s name. We demolished the rear lounge entirely, but retained the small bar and off-licence, which traded throughout the renovations. We added a new main bar, a cocktail bar and ‘ski-lodge’ smoking area on the mezzanine level with an open fire. The Red Room was added upstairs, providing club and live music facilities for up to 150 people at a time and we also put a meeting room up there that can accommodate about 35 people.”

Niall also introduced sport to the bar. As well as sponsoring a variety of local sporting clubs, the venue also screens popular sporting events throughout the year and it’s a particularly busy place during the Six Nations rugby championship.

“Our business is down to what we can offer,” he remarked. “I do think there’s a bit more enthusiasm out there at the moment, I sensed it before Christmas and it’s nice to see it coming back with a little more consistency than it’s had for some time.

“I’m optimistic going forward. In Magherafelt, there are 150 new houses being built at the moment and things are looking up, there’s a lot more prosperity in the air.”

His priorities now are to maintain business at its current levels and to strengthen its existing ties with the Mid-Ulster community:

“I’m also thinking of investing in The Red Room upstairs, it’s still quite small up there and there is quite a bit of dead space,” said Niall. “In the near future, we might extend the facility to accommodate about 250 people in a multi-purpose space.”