GLASGOW
About The Willow Tea Rooms Glasgow
One of Glasgow’s famous treasures for locals and tourists, alike.
Established 1983.
The story of the Willow Tea Rooms inspiration began a long, long time ago…
Kate Cranston, the famous Glasgow Tea Room Entrepreneur, and one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s biggest supporters, was born in her father’s hotel in George Square, Glasgow in 1849.
The Cranston family were avid supporters of the temperance movement and Kate’s brother Stuart gets the credit for opening the first Tea Room. He was a tea merchant and his enthusiasm for his product led him to have a kettle on hand in his shop to provide samples for his customers.
“Hey, how about Tea Rooms?”
Stuart then hit upon the idea of charging for this and set up some tables and chairs in the premises. He began selling cups of tea with the optional extra of cakes.
The idea proved lucrative and soon Tea Rooms were sprouting up all over the city.
George Walton and Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Taking inspiration from her brother, Kate decided to open her own Tea Rooms business. She had a total of four in Glasgow, Argyle Street, Ingram Street, Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street.
The Tea Rooms were an immediate success, partly due to Kate’s own distinctive character. A compassionate employer, Kate visited the homes of the girls who worked for her, ran a compulsory insurance scheme and made sure they all had three meals a day, a great perk given that many of the staff came from large poor families.
Although a touch old fashion and eccentric in her dress sense, Kate was the opposite in her business decisions. She used two relatively unknown designers at that time, George Walton and Charles Rennie Mackintosh – both of whom ensured that the Tea Rooms were truly unique, the interiors being critically acclaimed in the newspapers and art magazines of the day.
Coming back to today… Anne opened the Willow Tea Rooms in 1983, expanded to Buchanan Street in 1997 and into Watt Brothers in 2016.
Over the years we have also been lucky enough to be offered other great opportunities for the Willow Tea Rooms, we have been part of tea ceremonies in Japan and Springfest at Loch Lomond – where we went for a weekend and stayed for 6 months!
One thing that has been consistent over our years in business is that all our visitors want a quality product, locally sourced, homemade and home-baked and our menus today reflect this. As well as our traditional menu, our Miss Cranston’s Free From Menu caters has a great range of gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian options.
Our selected menus cater for breakfast, light lunches and afternoon teas. We have also a menu with suitability for dietary requirements - please see our ‘free from’ menus.