Eating out in Chorlton ….. 1979 …. waiting for the revolution

Now it is still within living memory when eating out in Chorlton, revolved around a Chinese restaurant, two Asian ones, and the Italian on Wilbraham Road, with handful of chippies and a few takeaways.

Saray, 2021

This was the 1970s, when coffee consisted of a warm brownish liquid, salad was a simple mix of sliced tomatoes, curled cucumber with a few bits of lettuce, and if you asked for cheese and biscuits there was a choice of red or white cheese.

The plethora of restaurants, serving Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, as well Spanish, Korean and Asian Fusion were two- and a-bit decades away, and while there were a number of cafes these tended to close early.

Costa, 2021

And pubs were pubs, where the peckish might get a variety of flavoured crisps and pork scratchings, but nothing more adventurous.  And here I may be wrong but those, staples of some pubs, which were pickled eggs, and pork pies wee never presented on the bars of our public houses.

Although what happened at the Feathers, The Southern and the Oaks, on the edges of the township I cannot vouch for.

So, when ever I am confronted with those nostalgic rambles of when Chorlton was better I would just have to offer up a menu and the closing times of our cafes from the 1960s, along with a snapshot of what was available to eat after 5.30 in the evening.

Dining, 1980s

There will be those who bemoan the onward advance of cafes, bars, and takeaways, and I confess we must be reaching saturation point, evidenced by the growing turn over in some of them.

But the way we shop has changed and those traditional businesses serving up groceries, fruit and veg as well fresh fish and a slew of other things have gone, and I doubt will come back, leaving that simple question of who and what will fill the vacant spaces?

On a brighter note the news is that Patrick, he of Primavera and the Lead Station is coming back and opening a restaurant in the very premises on Beech Road, from which helped transform Beech Road.

Café Society on Beech Road, circa 2008

And for those who want a bit more nostalgia, the post has led to a shedload of memories, some of which qualify my harsh comments on our pubs.  So, David weighed in with "The Trevor Arms had pickled eggs behind the bar but you had to ask, otherwise out of sight and once tried, out of mind", while Glenys brought back memories of the travelling shellfish man who did the rounds with small packets of cockles and other delicacies from the sea.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures, eating on Wilbraham Road, 2021 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and one of the restaurants circa early 1980s, from the Lloyd Collection