Leeds does a proper night out. We’re biased, obviously, but the stretch between Call Lane and Lower Briggate on a Friday is hard to beat anywhere in the north. Thousands of people come through that little pocket of the city every weekend, have a brilliant time and get home in one piece.
A small number don’t, and when it goes wrong it’s rarely dramatic. Usually it’s something small. A dead phone, or a mate who wandered off and nobody knowing where to start looking. Our team has over fifty years in Leeds hospitality between our bar and door staff, and we see the same handful of situations again and again.
So this is what we’d actually say to a friend before they came out, rather than the usual list nobody reads.
Sort the journey home before you leave the house.
This is the single biggest one, and it costs you two minutes.
Decide how you’re getting back before the first drink, not at half one when your phone is on 4%, and there’s a queue at every rank. If you’re on the train, check the last one properly, because the last service out of Leeds Station on a Saturday is not the same as a Thursday. If you’re getting a cab, book it or use a licensed firm rather than getting into whatever pulls up on Boar Lane. A licensed hackney carriage or a pre-booked private hire car is the only thing you should be getting into.
Your phone needs to survive the night, so charge it before you come out and bring a battery pack if you’re the one filming everything. Worth screenshotting the address too if you’re crashing at someone else’s place. We’ve seen plenty of people stood outside a taxi office at two in the morning who couldn’t remember their mate’s postcode.
Agree what happens if the group splits.
It will happen. Someone goes for a cig, someone else goes to the bar, and twenty minutes later there are three separate groups in three separate venues.
Pick a meeting point and a rule before you go out. Something like “if we lose each other, we’re back at The End” works fine. Don’t rely on the group chat alone. Signal is patchy in half the cellar bars in this city, and nobody hears a phone in a room with a DJ in it.
If you’re moving venue, message the group before you move, not after. And if a friend is leaving early or going home with someone, know how they’re getting back and get a message when they’re in.
Look after your drink.
Don’t leave a glass unattended, and that includes leaving it on the table while you dance or handing it to someone you met twenty minutes ago. Either take it with you or finish it before you move.
Drink spiking is not common, but it happens, and the signs are worth knowing. The thing to watch for is someone becoming far more drunk than the amount they’ve had could explain. Sudden confusion, slurring, trouble standing, nausea, or that glassy detached look that doesn’t match two drinks.
If you think you or a friend has been spiked, tell a member of staff immediately. Every venue in Leeds city centre, including ours, has staff trained for exactly this. Do not put that person in a taxi on their own and do not let them go home with someone you don’t know. Stay with them and get help.
Most venues in the city also Ask for Angela. If you feel unsafe, uncomfortable, or you’re on a date that’s gone wrong, go to the bar and ask for Angela. Staff will get you out discreetly, into a taxi or into a back room, and nobody in the room needs to know anything happened. Use it. That’s what it’s there for.
Substances.
We’re a licensed venue, and we don’t allow drugs on our premises. That’s the rule, and our door team enforces it.
But pretending nothing goes on in any city’s nightlife doesn’t keep anyone safe, so it’s worth being straight about a few things.
The main one is that you can’t know the strength or the contents of anything you didn’t get from a regulated source. Two things that look identical can be wildly different. Mixing is where most serious incidents start, particularly mixing anything with a lot of alcohol. And nobody should be taking anything on their own, because the whole point of a night out is that there are people around who’d notice if you went quiet.
Poppers come up in this conversation more than most, partly because of where we are. Legally, they sit in an unusual spot. Alkyl nitrites are sold in the UK as room aromas and odourisers, and every bottle carries a “not for human consumption” label.
We asked AromaRoma UK, a UK room aroma retailer that’s been trading for more than eight years, what they’d want people to know.
“We sell room aromas. That’s what the label says, and that’s what we sell. The main thing we’d tell anybody is buy from a UK seller who’s been trading a while and who puts the ingredients and a batch number on the bottle. There’s a fair bit of relabelled stock about and with those you’ve no real idea what’s in them.
“Then it’s just looking after the bottle sensibly. The liquid is highly flammable, which people do forget, so keep it away from lighters and vapes. It’ll take the skin off your hand if it goes over you, and we hear about that more often than you’d think. Sealed, upright, somewhere cool, and nowhere a child or a dog can get at it.
“People assume anything you can order online must be harmless. It’s a chemical, same as half the stuff under the sink at home. The warning’s on the label for a reason and we’d rather people read it.”
Beyond that, one piece of NHS guidance is worth repeating, and it doesn’t come from us or from any retailer. Nitrites should never be combined with erectile dysfunction medication such as sildenafil, because the combination can cause a severe drop in blood pressure. Anyone with a heart condition, low blood pressure, glaucoma or anaemia is advised to avoid them entirely. That advice sits on the NHS and Talk to FRANK websites, and it’s the sort of thing worth knowing before a night out rather than during one.
If you want proper, non-judgemental information, Talk to FRANK (talktofrank.com) and Release are the national services, and Forward Leeds is the local alcohol and drug service for this city. All three are free, and none of them is interested in getting anyone in trouble.
If someone isn’t right, act early.
Don’t wait to see if they sleep it off.
Find a member of staff. Every venue has a first aider and a direct line to the door team. If someone is unconscious but breathing, put them in the recovery position on their side and stay with them. If they’re struggling to breathe, having a fit, or you can’t wake them, call 999.
Nobody gets in trouble for calling an ambulance. Ambulance crews are there to treat people, not to report them, and a delayed call is what turns a bad night into a serious one. Every single member of our team would rather you flagged us down over nothing than didn’t.
Getting home.
Stick to the busy, lit routes. Briggate, Boar Lane and the Headrow are well covered and busy until late. The quiet cut-throughs and empty car parks are not the shortcut they look like at two in the morning.
Walk with someone if you can, and share your live location with a friend or whoever’s at home. If you’ve got headphones in, leave one ear free. And send a message when you’re back, because the mate lying awake waiting for it is doing you a favour.
The short version.
If you only take one thing from this, make it the first one on the list.
- Know how you’re getting home before you leave the house.
- Phone charged, battery pack if you’re likely to need it
- A meeting point everyone has actually agreed on.
- Your drink stays with you.
- Ask for Angela in any venue in the city if you feel unsafe.
- Nobody who isn’t right gets left on their own
- Call for help early rather than waiting to see
Get those covered, and you’ve dealt with nearly everything that goes wrong on a night out here.
We’re in Hirst’s Yard, tucked between Call Lane and Lower Briggate, open Thursday through Sunday. If you’re out with us and something doesn’t feel right, come and find one of our team. That’s genuinely what we’re here for.