Fibre

During the day it’s pretty unassuming. At night, follow the music!

For a big, cosmopolitan city, Leeds doesn’t really have much in the way of LGBT safe spaces. They’re mostly clustered around the Lower Briggate area, centred on the most established venue, Queens Court.

Fibre sits directly across the courtyard from Queens Court and often seems like a kind of overspill venue for its bigger neighbour. Indeed, the two often collaborate on events, and at the weekend when they’re rammed it’s hard to tell where one stops and the other begins.

During the daytime, Fibre is part café, part bar. There is all-day breakfast, a full menu, coffee and free wifi (the fastest free wifi I’ve seen in Leeds!) It’s pretty chilled out when it’s quiet, although the loud generic dance music isn’t any less loud, so it’s not the place to carry out a quiet conversation!

Gaudy gaudiness. The TV behind the bar is showing clubbing news. I didn’t know there was such a thing!

The décor is excessively gaudy, but not out of place! There are lots of comfortable places to sit, including in the large courtyard, which is shared with 4 other bars.

But what lets Fibre down is its beer selection. All you’ll find on tap here is the usual Carlsberg, Stella, Becks, Budweiser, San Miguel, and nothing of interest in the fridge apart from Modelo. Fibre’s speciality is spirits and cocktails and these are very cheap indeed (2 for 1 on pretty much everything) and there are some good bottles of hard stuff behind the bar (Ardbeg single malt, and Bulleit County bourbon).

It’s a shame about the beer selection here, because Fibre does have a lot of other things going for it.