Inside the hidden spy-themed Liverpool bar disguised as a tailor’s shop

A hidden Liverpool basement bar which is disguised as a tailor’s shop has been so convincing that it’s had to turn away customers asking for alterations!

Tailors Liverpool opened on Old Hall Street at the beginning of summer, with mannequins in its ‘shopfront’ and a curtained doorway leading to the fitting rooms.

Once inside, people are met by a tailor, armed with a tape measure, looking ready to get to work.

In fact, he’s there to welcome guests and ask for a password which gives them access through a secret entrance to a spy-themed speakeasy.

For most visitors who’ve experienced it since it opened, Tailors has been a theatrical and very Insta-worthy night out.

But co-owner Stephen McCarthy says there have been a few who’ve been surprised by what they’ve discovered when they headed downstairs.

“The look of the place works really well, and at first it actually worked too well because we were getting quite a lot of people coming down asking for clothes to get tailored,” he says.

“We even had someone come in and ask for alterations to their wedding suits and a navy officer wanted us to alter his number twos.”

To avoid any confusion, Tailors has now replaced the window mannequins with screens which give occasional clues to its identity, although the full secret isn’t revealed until the password has been exchanged.

Bootle-born Ste and his co-owners decided on a spy theme for their bar early on in the planning stages and set about creating a colourful backstory.

He explains: “There are five owners, including my wife, and I also own a rum brand called Black Ops so our plan originally was to open a rum bar in New Brighton. But once the other guys decided to come in on it, we came up with the idea of a secret speakeasy rather than a rum one.

“Every time we mentioned tailors to family and friends they’d say ‘like The Kingsman’ so we thought we’d go a bit further with that and because it’s a work of fiction anyway we’d say The Kingsman was based on us.

“We all like spy films so we thought that would be cool and with Daniel Craig coming from around here we thought we’d put Bond in there as well so we expanded the spy theme and ran with it.”

They decided to take a theatrical approach to not only the décor but the cocktails and food presentation too.

“We wanted to try and make the whole experience as interactive as possible, so there are stories behind a lot of our cocktails and a chance to win prizes.

“Our Peaky Blinders Old Fashioned comes with a tabletop racing game where you can win a discount on your drinks, the High Score is similar and comes with a pinball game, and we have a Sherlock Holmes themed cocktail where customers can win a prize if they solve a riddle.

“We’ve carried it through to our menu of sharing boards and charcuterie as well so our specials menu is written in invisible ink and you have to shine a special light on it to see it. 

“People book online and they get a message saying ‘thanks for booking your fitting’ then we send them a password which is a different fabric each week, maybe cashmere or Mulberry silk. When they arrive, they walk down the stairs through a curtained door and into the tailor’s shop where there’s a sofa, a mannequin, a desk, a changing room and a big fireplace, and they’re greeted by our tailor with his tape measure.

“We have old photos up, showing our original ‘Kingsmen’ as four guys from Liverpool, and we’ve got mocked-up photos from the 1920s to add to the story. If they give us the password the secret door opens into the bar where there’s a massive display case with tuxedo and weapons so it looks like a spy wall.

“There are lots of little touches which hopefully make it memorable and we’re still coming up with ideas all the time.”

Tailors Liverpool is open from Thursday to Sunday, Thursday and Friday 4pm-midnight, Saturday 12noon-midnight, and Sunday 12noon-6pm when it hosts a Mad Hatter’s afternoon tea party. 

For more info on Tailors Liverpool click HERE.