Seumas MacInnes

Cafe Gandolfi

Seumas MacInnes is the entrepreneurial restaurateur behind the expanding empire of Gandolfi restaurants based in the Merchant City area of Glasgow, the hitherto ignored yet historical eastern edge of Glasgow city centre, which has been earmarked for development by Glasgow City Council.

The enduring Gandolfi style began in 1979 in a decaying pub adjoining the old Cheese Market. Signal-ling the start of the restoration of the Merchant City district into a residential, retail and eating-out area in the city centre, its founder was Ian MacKenzie. MacInnes joined five years later and has continued after MacKenzie's retirement in 1998.

MacKenzie chose the name from the Italian Gandolfi brothers who made cameras. The Gandolfis' pho-tographs of Italian restaurants and cafes in Glasgow line the walls.

Redevelopment of Merchant City

In 2002, Glasgow City Council drew up a five year action plan for the redevelopment of Merchant City (see Media:Actionplan.pdf). This badly-punctuated document is explicit about the Council's intentions to capitalise on the potential of this area, ensuring that the area's many derelict properties are renovated and inhabited. Many of the strategies outlined dovetail neatly with tourism initiatives being developed by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, and with cultural developments in the area being overseen by the Development and Regeneration Department in collaboration with Culture and Sport Glasgow. A key example of the latter trend in Merchant City is Trongate 103 which will see a building at the corner of King Street and Trongate - which currently houses eight grassroots cultural organisations - being developed into an architect-designed arts complex.

In 2007, Seamus MacInnes was appointed as a Director of Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC, the business arm of Culture and Sport Glasgow (formerly the Cultural and Leisure Services department of Glasgow City Council).