New bar and grill with 'great views of river' opens its doors in Shrewsbury

The Terrace Charcoal Grill & Lounge Bar was officially opening its doors on Saturday after over two years of work went into transforming the building.

Husband and wife, James and Wendy Yurky, along with two other business partners, Jimmy and Tila, purchased the building on 6 Smithfield Road, Shrewsbury, over two years ago and they have put a lot of work into renovating the place.

Speaking about this, James said: "Me and my wife moved to Shrewsbury around eight years ago, and we purchased the building just over two years ago.

"When I came to see it, it had been closed for a number of years. It was a glorious day, the sun was shining and I thought yeah, we can definitely do something with this.

"So we began working on it, transforming the place, and we have added an elevated decking area which will help with the flood risk.

"This should help us get out of the floods and should not have any issues.

"A lot of work has gone into the transformation. Over two years of work, all done ourselves with our own hands, we did not use any contractors, only specialists where it was needed but otherwise it has been our own project, and our own literal blood, sweat and tears has gone into the place."

With the grand opening taking place at 8am on Saturday, all the last minute fine details were added, with a rush of making sure everything was correct ahead of the big day.

James added: "Everything is going okay but a bit of last-minute panic to make sure everything is prepared properly and ready, as it is an entirely new business, so there has been nerves but we are really excited.

"We have had an absolute overwhelming response from people. Within four days of launching our social media pages and website, we have had 140 bookings made with us - we are very touched by the support already.

"There has been people stopping by the building to tell us that it looks great and they cannot wait to visit, and so we are feeling a bit emotional, touched but really looking forward to it.

"I feel like we have hit on something that the town really wanted, some place that really makes use of the river and looks the way it looks.

"One thing we have made of point of how we run the place as well is by having no freezers or microwaves here.

"Everything will be prepared on our open coal grill, everything we source for ingredients will be locally sourced.

"Our meats will be from the local butchers, William Dodd, and that is because of the passion of the man, he is brilliant and is a cracking man.

"Plus I can trace all of the meat to a local farm, with nothing shipped over from abroad, along with our fruit and vegetables which are also locally sourced, as well as our drinks which are from two local suppliers.

"This is all in the thinking of helping the all-round local economy and supporting local businesses.

"We really want this place to be somewhere that people will want to visit and spend time here."

The owners have also made the point to pay homage to the previous owner of the building who passed away.

They are doing this by creating a bespoke cocktail called 'The spirit of Lilly', which is a small nod to the previous owner.

James said: "Her tearoom was very popular here and she herself was really popular, and so, although we have transformed the place, we are paying homage to her.

"She started the legacy and we are simply building on it.

"And it is nice because we have recently had contact from her surviving relatives, and they will be joining us for dinner and drinks."