Wax Bar & Jukejoint

Wax Bar shares its frontage with the more famous Sela downstairs.

Wax Bar is tiny. Even though it’s at street level I wouldn’t be surprised if you missed it entirely when walking along New Briggate.

What you see is what you get. This is the whole bar.

The theme here is retro technology. There’s a genuine 45 singles jukebox (you just get a choice of a handful of records and their b-sides) — the only one of its kind that we know of in Leeds — and the walls are decorated with art made from cassette tapes. Even the lamps are cassette art! Best of all, they’ve got an 80s VHS television showing class movies yellowing from overplaying.

In case you don’t remember the name of the bar, these cassettes have it spelled out.

The seating is pretty rubbish. There are a couple of nice leather benches (including one by the front window which opens fully onto the street on sunny days) but the rest of the seating is high wooden stools.

It’s Reservoir Dogs! In miniature!

Cocktails are the main drink choice here, and the beer selection definitely suffers. They have a handful of decent bottled beers including Brooklyn, Goose Island and Pacifico but nothing you couldn’t find elsewhere.

If you’re dying to play a record on an old jukebox or you’re really looking for Reservoir Dogs on the small screen then this might be your place. Otherwise, maybe just pop in for the atmosphere and a quick one before moving on elsewhere.