94 Byres Road, Glasgow. G12 8TB. Tel: 01413411041.
Opened in the early 1950s by James Montgomery who formerly had licensed premises in Buchanan Street. The Rubaiyat was built on the site of Drummond’s Tea room.
The small circular cocktail bar “The Bowl of Night” has disappeared when it was refurbished in the 1980s. The locals protested when the interior was being destroyed and they even changed the name of the pub to Findlay’s, however the original etched mirror has survived and still hangs on the wall.
The Rubaiyat name has always confused the passer by many still cannot pronounce the name, over the years I have heard the name rubber rat, rubber yacht and many more such names. The students of nearby Glasgow University are quite familiar with the name, the poet Omar Khayyam’s masterpiece reads
“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight: And Lo! the hunter of the east has caught, The Sultan’s Turret in a noose of light,”
The pub was up for lease last month August 2005.
Exterior view of Finlay’s during the early 1990s.
The Rubaiyat. 2007.
The neon sign that once hung over the doorway of the Rubaiyat. 1953.
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