The Watermark Bar closed its doors for the last time as the sun rose after one final all-nighter on January 2nd, 2025.
To celebrate its final day and the coming of the new year, the cocktail bar brought back bartenders from its 6 year history on Cross Belgrave Street to mix drinks for its loyal community one more time (and maybe share a drink with them, too).
My friend Sam was one of these bartenders. After leaving the bar a year and a half ago, he donned his apron again for a 1/2 hour shift that soon morphed into 2, then 4, then 6 hours pouring shots, swinging lights and tearful goodbyes.
The Watermark avoided the usual pretentiousness cocktail bars that make their own syrup seem to demand; the place didn’t take itself seriously. It was modelled after the owner’s home bar and remained authentically itself. It had a distinct style like you were visiting a friend’s place; your friend who happens to mix the best cocktails in the city.
In a bar tradition, whenever something notable happened someone would swing the bar’s hanging lights like pendulums. Bass drop? Swing the lights. New bartender? Swing the lights? Pouring shots straight into mouths from the bottle across the bar? Swing the lights.
In its final hours the bar was in a race to finish its stock; the more drinks people ordered, more more spirits ran out and the more creative the bartenders became with substituting ingredients to complete a cocktail. They would browse the library of spirits behind the bar on the sliding ladder to find the perfect substitution to complete their work.
In a city as big as Leeds, there are hundreds of bars, pubs and clubs you could spend your nights in; the Watermark was proud to covet a cast of diehard regulars. One of them told me he “first came to the Watermark for the alcohol, but stayed for the people”. It was obvious how much everyone loved one another. Bartenders put on aprons to cheers and applause like they were celebrities.
Throughout the night, everyone I talked to echoed the same thing; the Watermark was as much the community in that room as it was the room itself.
Even on its closing night, the Watermark was still inviting new people into the family. I spoke to one newcomer from Harrogate who lamented she wished she had not discovered the haven in it’s final hour, otherwise she would have made the trip every week.
Once they stepped through the doors that night, no-one wanted to be anywhere else. People who left to visit another bar later returned; the Watermark was, quite literally, magnetic. Not because of the location (it sat across from a notorious skip) or its drinks (though usually fantastic, past 2am the only drinks left were gin and whiskey), but because of the people.
Every person in that room was your friend from the moment you started talking to them. You were welcomed with open arms, treat like a mate and drank like a king. You were home.
The owner said it best at 6am when he was closing the doors: “This bar is more than the sum of its parts […] without what we have, it would just be a bunch of weirdos working in a dusty room owned by a prick”. They will not let this setback destroy their dreams, and are trying to find a new location to re-open shop in.
Personally, I can’t wait.
The Watermark is dead, long live the Watermark.