Home > Warwickshire > Birmingham > B1-B4 > The Grapevine The Grapevine

Picture source: David Gray

The Grapevine was situated on Paradise Place. This M&B pub was known as the Yardbird when it closed in late 2014, and was also known as The Bread & Roses. To be demolished as part of a council regeneration project.

‎Going back over twenty years ago and a good number of years before The Grapevine on Paradise Place Birmingham was the number one choice for students of the Birmingham Conservatoire that was situated just a few yards over the road. I doubt that without the students the pub would have survived as long as it did but it was warm, inviting and had a baby grand in the window that anyone could play. A well stocked bar and a simple food menu was also a hit with the locals but the music student pub is how I remember it, and I was one of them.

Chris (November 2015)

Much used by Birmingham Polytechnic students as halls of residence just 5 mins away on Summer Row. First placed I ever played ‘Pong’ the black and white computerised table tennis game. I used pub between 1972-76.

Andrew Myatt (July 2019)

I have a fond memory of the Grapevine, it was the pub that fell between the more upper crust establishments of the city centre and those that you would have been best to avoid. The whole thing survived because of the students, most nights it was jam packed with Birmingham Conservatoire Students and of course, I was one of them. It was not an overly large building but it was in a strange way quite classy, the Baby Grand Piano in the window was white, the décor a dark oak and in all a feeling of well kept intimacy. I do often wonder just how the place survived for as long as it did because the student atmosphere was so prevalent you rarely saw any non students in the their at all, and students as you may know are not known for having bags of money. The landlady was lovely, strict but friendly, she really made the pub. It was the place that you went to forget about music, to be ordinarily you and to become friends. I do wish that Brum would cease re inventing itself as we have lost these lovely old places to perpetual development. We did occasionally find non students in the pub, Charlie Bad Boy Mitten was one, a strange blues playing guitarist who once met was never forgotten. Any one know if he is still around?

Chris Muscillo (May 2021)

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