One of Cardiff’s oldest arcades will soon be a regular night-time food and drink venue.
The long-awaited Dukes Street Arcade will finally open later into the eveing with a series of events, new restaurants and bars to quench your thirst into the late hours.
Friday 4th May will see the launch of the first stage, the Ruin Café at 3-7 Duke St Arcade. The Ruin Café is a collaboration between The Creative Village team and their favourite purveyors of food, drink, music and art.
The Creative Village is a not for profit organisation set up to support and develop creativity in Cardiff with particular focus on music, art and performance. Its first project is to develop around 5,000 sq ft of space in Duke Street Arcade in the heart of the Castle Quarter, Cardiff. The aim for the space is to house office, studio, meeting and workspaces alongside an art gallery, event spaces and at it’s heart a café/bar and gallery.
Creative Village trustee John Sullivan explains
‘We really want the café to showcase all the wonderful things in Cardiff that we love. So we’ve partnered with Pipes Brewery and Uncommon Ground Coffee for our favourite drinks, we have our own Ruined Chef, Owen Bowley, cooking some amazing vegan food and our good friends at Rat Trap will be curating the café as a constantly evolving art space. We will also be working with a host of event organisers to bring music, cinema, theatre, poetry and pretty much anything else creative to our event spaces ’
The opening of the Ruin Café coincides with the recent decision for the Duke St arcade to open three evenings per week. This move has sparked a wave of activity from existing businesses plus a marked increase in use of pop up and event spaces in the arcade. Steve Bines who manages pop ups and events has seen a real gain in momentum in recent months
‘‘Until recently the Duke St arcade was the one of the lesser known arcades in Cardiff. There’s a definite sense that it is hitting people’s radars now and with the evening opening plus new tenants like Ruin Café, Macho Nachos and Papanache plus great events like Rat Trap, Lost Lands Cinema and the BBC Sesh launch I think that people are beginning to see what an amzing place the Duke St arcade really is’’
The launch will take place over the weekend of 4th May and promises to show off all that The Ruin Café has to offer. Operations manager Marianne Barry explains
‘Our launch will begin at 11am Friday with our full vegan deli menu serving salads, flatbreads, soups and dal. Then at 5pm we’ll introduce hot meals with our chef’s speciality Bottomless Chilli Bowl and Thai spiced Bean Burger. We’ll also be serving locally brewed beer and locally roasted coffee all day and night. The entertainment for the weekend will begin on Friday at 7pm with live music from Buzzard and friends, Saturday will be hosted by Featherjaw, and the grand finale on Sunday will see Rat Trap taking over for their exhibition closing party featuring 16 of the finest musicians and artists from the area. We’re so excited to have all our favourite things under one roof and hope that everybody else enjoys them as much as we do’’
The Ruin Café and Creative Village are situated in Duke St Arcade opposite Cardiff Castle and adjoining the High St Arcade.
The launch event will run from 11am to 11.30pm on Friday/Saturday 4th/5th May and entry is free.
Details here…. www.facebook.com events
The Rat Trap event runs from 6pm to 11.30pm tickets are £5 in advance
Details here…. Rattrap event
