How a passion for all things Scottish led to the creation of an Inverness institution. Susan Young talks to Bruce Macgregor and wife Jo De Sylva of Macgregor’s.
Bruce MacGregor and his wife Jo De Sylva co-own MacGregor’s in Inverness, which has garnered a reputation as one of the best places to enjoy Scottish music and convivial Scottish hospitality in the country – and I’m not surprised. Bruce and Jo are passionate about Scotland, Inverness, MacGregor’s, music and hospitality, although perhaps not in that order.
It’s hardly surprising that the pub has its roots in traditional Scottish folk music, because Bruce is one of the people credited with the resurgence of its popularity. He formed the band Blazin’ Fiddles in 1998 and toured the world with it. He was also a wellknown broadcaster, probably best known as the host of the BBC’s “Travelling Folk,” and is also a renowned composer and has written a book. Whew! However, he has just retired from the band—but not from music (Jo suggests he is playing even more). You will still find him playing at MacGregor’s, composing music, and organising and performing at various festivals.
Meanwhile, Jo – who is a go-to when the BBC wants a view on tourism issues in Inverness and the Highlands – was the creative influence behind the look and feel of MacGregor’s. As well as having a background in broadcast journalism, she has also served on various tourism authority boards, including acting as co-director and Chairman of Visit Inverness Loch Ness and is currently vice chair and judge at the ‘Highlands and Islands Thistle Awards’.
Today, MacGregor’s boasts a main bar, a cocktail bar, a downstairs bar which takes 26, and a beer garden. They also own Bogbain Farm, which is known for hosting weddings, festivals, and parties.
Although the two only married just under a decade ago, they actually met when they both worked at the BBC in their early 20s but had only been work colleagues. It was a chance meeting in Glasgow 20 years later that led to their romance. Jo reflects, “Right time, right place.” Bruce interjects, “At that time she had no idea I was planning a pub or what she was getting herself into!”
Today, the two perfectly complement each other but are also, if you will excuse the pun, completely in tune when it comes to the ethos behind MacGregor’s and Bogbain.
Bruce explains, “I had been touring for years and years, and everywhere we went there was an Irish bar, and I thought, ‘What on earth?’ because it’s not as if Scottish people don’t like drinking – and if you did find one it was covered in Celtic and Rangers memorabilia or it was tartan tat. I thought let’s do something that is authentically Scottish that celebrates the history, music, culture and our assets—the Highlands.
“After all, when people think of Scottish traditional music what they are actually hearing is Highland music most of the time.”
So, in 2015 he decided to approach his dad, who owned a former car showroom with a piece of waste land attached on Inverness’s Academy Street. It had been vacant for a few years, and prior to that it had been leased out. Bruce asked him what he thought about putting a pub in the premises. He said: “a) You’ve got no experience of running a pub?” followed by, “No one goes to pubs anymore, and what is your unique selling point? And how are you going to fund it?”
Bruce’s idea was to crowdfund—and to do a Scottish bar. Bruce recalls, “My dad just laughed! And said, aye good luck, but told me to take the premises if I wanted them.”
He also managed to raise the £150,000 funding through crowdfunding and it was just as he was finishing the fundraising that he met Jo.
In fact, it was Jo who came up with the design concept for the interiors of the pub, which was furnished by creatively re-purposing and upcycling furniture from all over, including from Bruce’s beloved rugby club.
Bruce continues, “There is no way I could have done it without Jo’s vision and drive. The bar concept was to feature the best Scottish craft beers, spirits and food but mixing it with history, traditional music and culture. We had stripped the whole building back and had done a couple of pop-ups to raise awareness, and then Jo designed the whole thing from top to bottom, and dealt with the builders.”
Jo adds, “Because we were doing it all ourselves we couldn’t afford to buy anything new, so I was constantly scouring Facebook or eBay— and we took everything we could get. The tables came from Bruce’s rugby club, we also have items from Helensburgh Rugby Club, a light from Dingwall Sheriff Court—and so on.”
She adds, “Everything has a story.” MacGregor’s first official night was St Andrew’s Day 2017.
Says Bruce, “It so happened that Skipinnish was playing in the Iron Works, across the road, and the date fitted with what we were doing.”
The pair also wanted to source locally, Jo says, “For us it has always been about—if we can support the local community, it is beneficial to everybody. We like to use people as close as we can and then it spirals out. All our beers are local—and most of our suppliers are Scottish. The cocktail bar is slightly different, but in the main bar we se as many Scottish brands as we can.”
Bruce admits, “The first three years were hard, but we were getting to the point where we thought we were getting there. Then along came Covid and wiped everything out. Every member of the team disappeared. But I do believe despite that, Covid was the making of us.”
Jo explains, “We had the beer garden, so we decided to start using pop-up kitchens, and we started working with local street food providers—many of whom had been nearly wiped out. We got loads of them in, and we also used Bogbain where we did pop-up Sundays. We got different street food vendors up in the courtyard area there, and we did outside music and did table service. It was hard work, but it worked well. We didn’t make any money, but it kept these small traders going.
“One of those traders, Ness-Side Catering, is now operating our kitchen, and they do all our weddings at Bogbain Farm as well. They are a great young team and they get what we are doing.”
Bruce reflects, “The other thing that came out of lockdown was because we had just won an award for Best Music Bar we had planned to make a fuss of it, but when two months later we were shut we thought why don’t we create something that binds all the musicians together. Because we both have a media background, we started doing a little programme called ‘Live At 5.’
“I sat there with a gin and tonic and got music videos sent to me— for instance Julie Fowlis did a Runrig song, and that ended up with a million views… and we would get three or four videos in a programme—one week we had 12,000 people watching the programme. We asked them to give us the views from their windows and we realised that they were watching from all over the world—from Japan to New Zealand.
“It was incredible. We were doing it six days a week with a repeat on a Sunday because we had nothing else to do. We are still doing that programme to this day, but on a Friday! We use it as a marketing tool now.”
Jo remarks, “We started the merchandise at the same time—we wanted to make Scottish history, which Bruce is so passionate about, more interesting. Up to that point, everything historical we had looked at was like old and crusty. So we came up with the idea of getting an artist to recreate historical Scottish characters in a vintage tattoo style—for instance Aleister Crowley the occultist, who is known as The Beast of Boleskin — or ‘The Beast’—and then we started doing t-shirts. It just took off. It was mental.”
Bruce adds, “The idea in the beginning was because food and drink is so difficult to sell in terms of trying to make it exciting. You can write a description of what’s in the drink, or what’s in the food, but if you have a story—‘I’ll have a Beast Burger,’ and then you find out he was an occultist, and he is an Espresso Martini too… you think wait a minute, that grabs me. We have one for Rob Roy MacGregor, which is The Warrior, The Romantic for Robert Burns, The Philosopher for David Hume and The Gael for Màiri Mhòr nan Òran. It is more about the people than the story.
“That has now developed and we have some new ones. Most of them are dead, but we have a new one which Alan Cumming has agreed to become one of, which is The Activist.
“We met him at Tartan Day in New York and talked to him about the cocktail. And he has been in here with his film crew to do something for his new travel programme.”
Only last week that programme was broadcast on CNN and not only featured MacGregors, but many great people and places in the Highlands, including our neighbours at Prickly Thistle.
Jo is also at the forefront of promoting Inverness and the Highlands as a tourism destination. She explains, “I was asked to join the board of Visit Inverness Loch Ness five years ago—and then the Chair left and I took on the role. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I am absolutely passionate about tourism and from our perspective, although we knew who we were, it gave us a real opportunity to take a fresh look at our bar—what it was, its real demographic and what kind of people were coming along. We began to really appreciate how important the tourism sector was to us as well as, of course, our locals. It also gave us good insight into what tourists wanted and we met lots of other businesses.
“Then I got asked to join the board of Highlands and Islands Tourism Awards and have been doing that for four years, although I decided to give up on Visit Inverness Loch Ness because at the same time we had decided to amalgamate here and Bogbain Farm into one business and I also do a lot of commentary for the BBC on tourism so it seemed like the right time to resign. I really like to promote our industry and although they mention the bar I don’t talk about it. Instead I talk about the general industry because I believe it is so important.”
Bruce affirms, “Both of us are passionate about promoting Scotland in its best light. That’s why I started Blazin’ Fiddles—because I wanted to promote our traditional music and that’s why we have done this.
“We do these sessions on a Sunday at MacGregor’s. When I started doing them I thought it was nice to have a wee session in the corner. On a Sunday it is more relaxed and no one is in a rush to get away. But it has now built into a monster—if you haven’t got there by 3.30pm you won’t get a seat. But when I look across the room I realise I am now the geriatric in the band—the piano player is 18, the piper is 17 and the fiddle player is 16! But it is inspiring to see. It has become a very special day for us.”
Never short of ideas it was out of these sessions that the two came up with a plan to take the pub on the road. They called it the MacGregor’s Gathering.
Says Bruce, “We came up with a mixture from the radio programme and a mix from the sessions and we ended up taking it to Celtic Connections and had two sold-out nights there. We had 15 musicians on the stage in the Piping Centre, and we streamed it. And we had guest artists on too. Then we thought maybe we could take that further. So we did another wee crowd funder and said we will come to your village, set the bar up, become the MacGregor’s Bar, and the MacGregor’s show and come to you.
“Now we are going to Piping Live in Glasgow, Speyfest in Fochabers and we are going to Cove near Helensburgh. We do workshops during the day with locals, and work through a couple of numbers and at the end of the night they come on stage with us—and the audience can join in by singing. It is about creating a community spirit. We got another four or five shows planned for this year.”
The two also run, as already mentioned, Bogbain Farm, which was Bruce’s family farm. In fact, his dad still lives there. Bruce recalls, “The barn is a really old building which was built in the 1700s and it is not too far from Culloden. I started it off as a kids’ play centre— but hated it. I progressed to doing gigs there—then a couple walked in when it was half a farm shop or half a gig venue and said, ‘Can we get married here?’ Then we started doing weddings, but when Jo came in she said we could do it better.
‘She made a some changes and now the barn looks really good—we have created a bigger space, there is a bigger kitchen and we can take 200 people no problem. The barn is quite spectacular—it can take all sorts of gigs. However, we have been kind of shying away from gigs because of the weddings, but now our tourism market is expanding really quickly. We find that they come for our Highlander Show.”
Jo explains, “We’ve been running the Highlander Show for the last 10 years. The show is about history and music and tour guests get to immerse themselves in Gaelic culture—Gaelic song, Highland dancing and a wee song at the end.
“We have done 53 shows this year. Disney Adventures started it by bringing tours to Scotland and I think the people who come really learn something about our history. When they first booked it they said they were looking for a six-star experience… we just said we are a farm! It’s cool, but not six-stars. They have been coming ever since.
“But we also do photoshoots there for people like *Elle* and *Vogue*, Harry Styles did his video there and Charlotte Church booked it too. When people go into the big barn it makes a big impression.”
Bruce adds, “When we did the show we thought we could do it with whisky too, and we do—and call it The Highland Malt Whisky Show. We say we are not experts but we love whisky—to be honest the whisky tasting notes are sometimes quite ridiculous. We don’t try and take it too seriously. In fact, everything we try and do has got to be fun. We talk about things and out of it comes another idea. If it’s more history-related, it’s me—and if it’s creative and looks nice, it’s Jo.
I asked Bruce and Jo what they were most proud of. Bruce said , “For me, it was when we took the pub to Celtic Connections – it proved that MacGregor’s is more than a bar, it is a cultural ambassador.” While Jo added, ““We have brought a lot of youngsters on in hospitality terms and in music terms. I love seeing people progress— we have a great team here, everyone supports one another.
“We believe in supporting our team—they have a good, nice life, and we try and help them achieve what they want to achieve. We are also flexible when it comes to when people want to work, whether early or evenings. It is about recognising people’s strengths. We get them to tell us what we could do to make it better.
“Everyone knows they are on stage here—it is a performance. Both of us being involved in events means that we see things as a performance. We get to represent Scotland every day. Our team feel part of that but it has taken our time to get there.”
What’s next for the enterprising duo? They have been working for months to get a new place, and it is now just about over the line, but ultimate plan would be to have MacGregor Pubs abroad – whether by creating licence for the brand or a joint venture. Says Bruce, “We are always up for people that grasp the idea. We would also love a brewer or distiller to get behind a Scottish pub brand like Guinness have got behind Irish bars.”
They are also managing a new singing sensation Michael Lewis who sung with them at Celtic Connections. They have been nurturing him for the past year and he’s now on his way to America. It’s certainly all go – since Bruce was a kid his father has recited a poem called ‘MacGregors Gathering’ and it is one of the mottos of the pub, I certainly think that Bruce and Jo can be proud of what they have achieved. I sincerely hope they ‘flourish for ever’.
