Inverness nightspot to add a restaurant

A LIVE entertainment venue in Inverness has been given the go-ahead to add kitchen and restaurant facilities.

The Botanic House in Castle Street is the latest occupier of a building first opened as a nightclub in the late 1980s.

Former occupiers Mr Gs vacated the building in May 2017, but the owners of the award-winning Simpsons Garden Centre re-opened the venue in November last year for live music and DJ performances on Friday and Saturday nights.

Highland Council planning officials used delegated powers to grant the application for a change of use within the building from a nightclub premises to mixed use as nightclub and restaurant.

The new eaterie will feature on the building’s ground floor and first floor, with the only external change being replacement of timber doors at the Castle Street entrance with glazed doors.

Highland Licensing Board’s private meeting this week approved changing its core opening hours to run from 11am-3am from Sunday to Saturday and in that time add bar meals and a restaurant.

It also wanted to allow children and young people downstairs when accompanied by an adult to have a meal or when attending “bone fide” functions, in which case they would be permitted upstairs until 1am.

Councillor Andrew Jarvie said there were no concerns on the board about the change as it was unlikely to result in a deterioration of behaviour in the city centre.

Meanwhile, the board deferred an application for an outside drinking area at Eden Court in Inverness after the wrong community council was consulted. The theatre’s management wanted “maximum flexibility” when catering for events and included all of its grounds in the application.

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