IN Paul Mason’s bar, mixology is a dirty word. “The skill of bar-tending is all about interacting with people,” he says in the decked garden he built himself behind his York Place bar and kitchen.

“Over the last 15 years it has become so much about the bar-tender rather than the guest. You can have all this great product knowledge, but if you can’t carry a quiet bar on a Monday night it’s no good.”

Mason knows of what he speaks - he was one of the original quartet which launched the Be At One chain in 1998, which now has 28 bars across London and the south.

He has also tended bars in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia and the US as well as coming second in the world championship of flare bar-tending in 1996.

He insists all his bar-tenders receive six weeks of training - learning the secrets of 120 cocktails, alcohol awareness, conflict management and how to communicate with customers.

Mason broke away from the hospitality industry for 14 years, leaving Be At One to work in film and then the building trade. He has now returned with a brand new concept based around a £20,000 cutting edge music system developed with Queen’s Road-based Jollywise Media.

Shuffle customers can log onto the venue’s soundsystem through their mobile phones and choose from a database of 2,500 songs handpicked by Mason.

The chosen songs are then played in a random order throughout the night.

“It came about from going to people’s house after-parties and looking through their CD collections,” says Mason. “I wanted to get that feeling in a public environment covering 50 years of music and all those different genres.”

The selection is revised every month, taking in suggestions from Shuffle’s Twitter followers.

“We do end up listening to the same songs every night,” he admits. “The more discerning music students might pick up on The Rolling Stones or The Cult, but we get a lot of Pharrell Williams. There is some diverse music on there.”

He is still tweaking the system - trying to ensure individuals don’t monopolise it by limiting users to three or four songs at a time.

And he wants to create themed playlists for Britpop and 1980s nights, as well as his reintroduction of the ladies night in Brighton on Thursdays.

For the bar’s decor Mason took inspiration from his time in the building trade with the assistance of Trafalgar Street Arches-based Wood Works. The main space incorporates scaffolding boards, plaster mesh membranes on the walls, and a bar built from gas pipes specially bent into shape in an Oldham factory.

“It is a very personal project,” says Mason, who runs the business with his wife Sonya and two silent partners. “I wanted to create something I could call my own.”

Mason is currently looking for a food business to take on his kitchen, but has already developed a menu of locally sourced sliders and different variations on his signature dish - the hanging skewer.

Customers can choose a kebab of chicken, sirloin beef, pork and mango or haloumi cheese with the sauce of their choice from £7.95. The skewer is brought to their table hanging vertically over a box of seasoned fries on a specially designed stand.

“A friend of mine, who runs a restaurant, saw something similar in Malta, and thought it would be something different,” says Mason.

“As soon as one goes out we get about five or six more orders!”

As for the future Mason hopes to open more Shuffle bars, and expand his opening hours - promising late night opening for Pride.

Shuffle is currently open Tues to Fri 5pm to 11pm, Sat 4pm to 11pm. Closed Sun and Mon. Visit www.theshufflebar.co.uk.