This absolute legend made it his mission to visit every single bar in Cardiff

Andrew Lloyd is an English graduate from the University of South Wales, who during his time studying had two goals: graduate with a First Class Honours, and visit every single bar in Cardiff Central. Abandoning goal number two for majority of his university life, Andrew returned to his drinking challenge in the last month of his degree, resulting in him visiting sixty bars in total across the Capital.

The English graduate spoke to The Tab Cardiff about his successful mission.

So why was visiting every bar in Cardiff such an important goal for you to achieve during university?

I grew up in a tiny town that had one nightclub, which then shut down after I visited once (not because of me I should add) so when I came to Cardiff for uni I decided I wanted to take advantage of an actual nightlife.

What was your favourite place and why?

Places like Lab 22 and The Dead Canary. These are kind of private bars, hidden away, that I probably wouldn’t have discovered if I hadn’t made it my mission to. Both are cocktail bars; one is reservation only and deliberately hidden in an alley, and the other has a sign above Greggs that took me three years to notice.

What was the weirdest thing that happened during this experience?

Probably ending up on a bar crawl with three middle-aged women. We discovered The Dead Canary by chance when we saw them smoking outside. They snuck us in and we spent the next few hours getting hammered with them. That was probably the heaviest night we had. My friend blacked out a bit and had to message me the next morning to ask what had happened; the membership for a gay bar found in his pocket.

What was your plan of action for completing this challenge in thirty days?

I had 30 days left to visit bars, but I also had 18,000 words of dissertation left to write, so it was quite chaotic. It was a mad mix of word counts and nights out. I just lived between the two for a month. One hour I’d be pondering the complexities of Dostoyevsky, and the next I’d be stuffing salt and Sambuca in Live Lounge.

Any bad hangovers?

Surprisingly not. I’m an enthusiastic lightweight; it doesn’t take much booze to get me going, which means my body doesn’t take too much of a beating.

How much did you spend on the whole challenge?

The mission was to have at least one drink in each place, so the total came to about £150.

Would you recommend other students try this challenge? What advice would you give to them?

The great thing about Cardiff is that there are always new bars and clubs popping up. I ended up visiting all 60 bars in the city, and if new students attempted that now, they would have their own, unique experience, and I would definitely encourage it. It’s great to have a regular that you always end up in, but it’s also good to check out all of the other kinds of nights out available to you. My advice would be to just go everywhere. And Snapchat it so you don’t forget it by the morning.

What’s next for you- any new challenges lined up?

I love setting myself missions like this. I’ve done a few other things that I’ve also uploaded, and I’m well into production on a number of new missions.

Because you got a First Class Honours you have been granted three wishes; what will you spend them on?

That is a lot of responsibility; there are a lot of things I could ask for that could re-shape society entirely. So, seriously considering the impact that these three wishes could have, I’d probably ask for a Corona, a bottle opener, and that everyone has a look at my channel.

Cheers boyyo.