* Who are you?

John and May Hawthorne, owners of Noodle, a noodle bar in Glasgow city centre.

* What does your business do?

We are a restaurant specialising in hand-pulled noodles which originated in Lanzhou, China. Hand-pulled noodles are a signature of Chinese cuisine.

The skill of the chef to pull noodles out of flour within a few minutes from scratch is a mesmerising skill.

This is actually a skill that is not used in the other Chinese restaurants and noodle bars as they all use mass-produced noodles from suppliers.

We serve a variety of noodle and rice dishes but as our company name suggests, noodles are the signature dish.

I'm proud to say that all our noodles are freshly hand-pulled by order by our professionally trained chefs.

The menu was created by my wife and the head chef and includes noodles with roasted beef, lamb ribs, traditional northern style dumplings, steamed buns, wonton soups and a selection of Chinese salad.

* Where are you based?

We are based in Glasgow's city centre at our shop on 98 Bath Street, as we feel the city centre location is easy to access.

* How did you get started?

I am Scottish born and bred but since I married my Chinese wife May, she has introduced me to many wonderful new interests and delights from China.

My wife is from a north-eastern province in China which has it's own history, culture and (most importantly to this story) cuisine that is unique from other parts of China.

After my experience of hand-pulled noodles in China, my wife and I were determined to bring this wonderful cuisine to Scotland.

Our signature dish is Lanshoulamian, which actually originated from the Muslim community within China. This became one of the most popular dishes within China which my wife and I found surprisingly hard to find anywhere in the UK.

This is why we decided to take this on ourselves and open our own business.

Since we opened, we have attracted many adventurous local Scots as well as Chinese customers.

The Chinese customers all proclaim that they are so glad to have found us as they can finally enjoy Lanshoulamian in Glasgow as we are the one and only restaurant of our type in Scotland.

* What is your background?

May has been in the restaurant trade all her life while I have had other business endeavours.

* How long has your business been running?

We opened in September 2015, so around 6 months.

* Has anyone helped you get started and how?

Nobody has helped us however I think a variety of organisations give great advice in Glasgow for new businesses - for example Scottish Enterprise, Entrepreneurial Spark, Chamber of Commerce and Scottish Enterprise.

* What was your biggest mistake/or what would you do differently?

Had I known how popular hand-pulled noodles were going to be in Glasgow, I would have found a bigger place to begin with.

* Contact Details

Noodle,

98 Bath Street

Glasgow

G22EN

0141 353 1889