Getting to Know the Dame with Andre Seidel

Getting to Know the Dame with Andre Seidel

Posted on: 16 Apr 2024

This week on Getting to Know, we spoke with Andre from fresh-faced Bedminster skater pub, The Dame - formerly the Tap & Barrel. We spoke with Andre on what makes it a skater bar, giving back to the community - and their visits from music royalty.

 

Can you introduce yourself - and where we are now?

 

My name is Andre Seidel, and I’m one of the owners of The Dame. It’s a new bar in Bedminster, South Bristol – just opposite Dame Emily Park and Dean Lane skatepark. We’re currently sat in the smoking area, enjoying the sunshine!

All of this is as it was when we took over the bar – which used to be called the Tap & Barrel. Unfortunately, last summer, the owner of this bar – and three others in the area – went into liquidation and closed all four doors. That’s how we got our greedy paws on the bar.

Myself and one of my other business partners, Tim Noakes, own Campus Skateparks in South & North Bristol. We’re lifelong skateboarders, and skating Dean Lane, there’s always this thought that this bar should be a skater’s bar. I’ve certainly thought about it loads, and I know other people have – so when the opportunity arose we did not hesitate.

 

 

What have you done to make it a ‘skaters bar’?

 

I guess...not a lot, is actually the answer. When we took it over, it was hard to believe it wasn’t doing as well as it should be; it’s a great location and internally the bar is sort of a traditional big open space, with a big square bar in the middle and seating all around – which we loved.

It invites people to come to the bar and sit at the bar. A lot of bars at the moment, they want you to come, buy your drinks at the bar and walk away to the other part – so the bar’s not always in the most central of locations. We really like the idea of having that bar central. You can be by yourself, with two people, three people – but if you’re by yourself you can come in, order a drink and sit at the bar, and almost have that Cheers effect, where you become friends with the barpeople. It’s just a bit more inclusive.

In terms of turning it into a skate bar, we just painted everything black, and put some skateboards on the wall! That is totally what we did. But, historically, Tim and I have worked tirelessly for skating in Bristol – we have the only two indoor skateparks. I think there’s a link there – when people heard we were taking over the bar it was obvious we were opening our arms to skateboarders, and the skateboarding community.

It’s weird because, if I’m honest, our demographic isn’t skateboarders at the moment. We have skateboarding on the TV, we have skateboards on the wall, but people coming in are not skateboarders – it’s everyone else. It’s almost like people like that culture – that culture is safe, and inclusive, and welcoming.

A lot of people are coming here because it isn’t necessarily a clean-cut, brand-new bar – it feels a bit more like people can make it their own. That isn’t by accident. Our first few months of being open, we didn’t actually have much artwork on the walls. It was bare – we invite people to graffiti the walls. Hopefully these little things are giving people ownership over the space. All the graffiti and the artwork is all local artists, who’ve been invited not only before we opened, but since we opened.

It’s about giving people a space that they can call their own, and that they can have an impact on.

 

 

So, more than just a skater focus, you really have a community focus?

 

Correct. Yeah, we are focused on that community vibe. It’s really nice, I think it has an impact, in terms of our clientele, and how they feel. Certainly, the best compliment I’ve heard is that it just feels like a safe environment. That’s really, really good. That’s really what we want. We want people to feel like they’re safe in these four walls.

I think that is partly because we are a skate bar – and skateboarding is quite inclusive. It is about helping people out. It doesn’t matter your ethnicity, your sex, your religion – if you’re there and you’re trying, skateboarders will accept you and bring you into the fold. Our staff, as well, a few of them are gay and nonbinary – we love that, and that has impact on our clientele feeling great and safe here.

 

 

I know one thing you do for the skating community is your house beer, Shralper – can you tell us a bit about that?

 

Yeah, Shralper is a lager – and it’s great! Every time we sell a pint, 10p of that goes toward a fund for DIY skateboard projects. We’ve given away one round, I think it was like £500. Which is crazy, because that means we’ve sold like 5000 pints. It’s nuts.

In December, we did an Instagram poll and gave £500 to a project of skaters and BMXers who are trying to build something under the Portway flyover, near Greville Smyth Park. I think they’re building that now, so that’s really good.

For us, it’s about giving back to skateboarding. We’ve given a lot to skateboarding – in terms of providing a space. But people pay to come in there, and people don’t always have money, so in terms of those businesses doing well...it isn’t always the case. Sometimes we don’t make profit in a year, or two years...or hardly ever make profit. But this is a nice one – beer is, in general, profitable, so it means we can give back to the community, which feels really nice. It’s great, the beer tastes amazing – and it’s cheap!

What we want to do is make a portable Shrelper bar and take that to skate events around Bristol – which would be great, because then 10p of every pint sold there will go into more DIY build spots.

We’re very proud of our beer selection. We have some really good BBF beers, which we’re really happy about, but we’re slowly getting other brands, all local to Bristol. So we’ve got some Wiper & True, some Arbor – we’ve also just got some Tiny Rebel in. We’re going to put in a few more taps in the next month, which will allow us to have more locally sourced beers. It’s important for us to support local – all our house spirits are Bristol Distillery Co., which is just round the corner.

 

 

What are you drinking at the moment?

 

At the moment I’m drinking Tiny Rebel’s Easy Living. It’s nice – it’s definitely sessionable, a nice light IPA.

 

You’ve recently been starting to host music events – what’s coming up?

 

When we opened, we really wanted to be a music venue – we thought gigs would take over our weekends. But really, as we’ve been open now for six months, our customers are dictating the way we go with that. We’ve only had one gig, it was really great – a local band called the Wilderman. They did a single release, and were supported by a band called Birdman Cult. It was a great night. It was a Friday night, it was busy, it was free entry, the bar felt alive.

On Thursday 18th we have a really exciting band playing – it’s Jack Bessant, his self-titled band. Jack is the bassist of the band Reef – and his drummer is Damon Reece, the drummer from Massive Attack. So that’s huge! We’re unbelievably excited. I know Jack, he comes to skate the skate park, he’s a friend of mine, but it feels quite surreal to have him and Damon play at the bar.

I have it on the down-low that Damon’s wife, Elizabeth Fraser, is going to be here singing some songs as well. She’s incredible as a musician and a songwriter – she’s been in some very iconic bands. I think it’ll be a really nice evening, and a chance to meet almost royalty in music, which is great!

This is our first ticketed event we’re having, ever. Normally, we always want it to be free, but we really want these musicians to get something from this gig, so all the door money goes to them, it’s not for us.

 

 

Did you also have Heavy Lungs in at one point?

 

Heavy Lungs were here, but they weren’t playing. They had a DJ set – that was an album launch party they had. They were amazing, they’re good friends of the bar, and we loved having them here.

I think South Bristol’s been waiting for a bar like this for a long time, and we’re very different to anything else. I kind of touched on it earlier, how a lot of other bars will say “okay, we’re going to take this bar, we’re closed for four months, and we’re doing it up, we’re doing it up, and when it opens it’s pristine, and completely to spec, and this is the bar we’re presenting to the world.”

That’s great – and I love bars like that – but I personally miss Bristol 10, 15 years ago, when most of the bars were a bit rough around the edges. It feels like the Dame in particular is going back to that kind of vibe. For South Bristol, we’re open quite late, we’re one of the latest bars on the road. We don’t serve food – which is good, I think, it means we’re just a boozer.

 

 

If you were King of Bristol for the day, what would you do?

 

I think that question’s too large for me. But to bring it down a bit – what would I do for South Bristol? For Dean Lane, and the space around where the bar is?

My vision is that the Dame is a community hub – that the green space around us becomes more inclusive, and isn’t just a green space. I really have a vision for all this space to be used by the community. If I was in charge, I’d grant myself a licence to take over the space, put food carts down here from Thursday to Sunday, put a bark park in, relandscape the grass – have it become a really flourishing park and community resource.

Okay yes, we’re the bar, so we’ll make tons of money selling beer to everyone sat around here...but I look at this space and think that we have a golden opportunity here to make this really inclusive – not just for beer drinkers.

So yeah, if I was in charge, I would say “yes, Andre, you have the power to do what you want in a 100m radius around the Dame.”

 

Corruption for the good of the community?

 

God damn it. Yeah, that is what that is, isn’t it?

 

You can find more from The Dame on their Instagram.

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Article by:

Patrick Bate

Patrick is a filmmaker with so much Bristol in his blood the white blood cells are graffiti'd. Educated at the Northern Film School in Leeds, he’s returned home to be a Videographer and Reviewer for 365Bristol and BARBI. When he’s not messing about with cameras, he enjoys playing guitar, spending far too much time on tabletop RPGs, and being an awful snob about cider. Have a look at his work here, or get in touch at patrickb@365bristol.com.