Café Society ………. Maple Street ……1962

The last twenty years have seen the emergence of countless bars, cafés, and restaurants on all our high streets.  

Min's Cafe, Lower Moss Lane, 1962

They are part of what is loosely called the Café Society.

But it is so easy to forget that the idea of the Café Society was something which actually referred to those sophisticated and rich people who gathered in fashionable cafés and restaurants in New York, Paris and London beginning in the late 19th century

All of which is a long way from Maple Street in 1962 and Min’s Transport Café.

When I was growing this was Café Society.  

Hot Food to take out, Maple Street, 1962

The food was basic but wholesome, and much of the menu was a variation on chips, eggs, and bacon with options which included sausages and beans.

The huge variety of coffees didn’t exist, and what constituted coffee was usually warm milk with a hint of the stuff.  There was the alternative which was Camp Coffee which I took a fancy to while working on a building site and collecting the food order for the site gang from the café on Vanbrugh Park.

And if none of these did the business there was always tea, or a raft of fizzy drinks. 

All of which were on offer from Bert’s on Whitworth Street, which is where we ended up for breakfast most days in the early 1970s.

Cafe Society, Beech Road, 2008

I don’t doubt Min’s was the same.  It was on Maple Street, which was off Lower Moss Lane in Hulme.

You won’t find it now, along with the network of streets that surrounded it.

Still, someone might remember it and come up with a story.

Location; Manchester

Pictures,  Cafe Society, Manchester, 1962 – 3730.3 and 1962 -3730.3, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Beech Road, 2008, from the collection of Andrew Simpson