Mermaid Quay, Waterfront shopping and leisure complex in Cardiff Bay, Wales
Mermaid Quay is a waterfront shopping and leisure complex in Cardiff Bay, Wales, with restaurants, cafes, bars, and shops laid out along a pedestrian promenade. The complex sits directly on the edge of the freshwater lake created by the Cardiff Bay Barrage.
The complex opened in the late 1990s as part of a large redevelopment that turned Cardiff's former docklands into a leisure and retail area. This was one piece of a broader transformation of the whole Cardiff Bay waterfront.
The Glee Club at Mermaid Quay hosts comedy nights with acts from across the UK and beyond. The waterfront terraces fill up in the evenings as people gather to eat and drink by the water.
The whole site is flat and easy to walk around, with all venues directly accessible from the waterfront promenade. A nearby car park uses automatic number plate recognition, so there are no traditional tickets to manage.
Before the Cardiff Bay Barrage was built, the ground here was exposed muddy tidal flats at low tide. Holding back the sea turned that land into a permanent freshwater lake, which is what makes a waterside walk here possible today.
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