Restaurants, Cafes, Coffee Bars

Anybody out there remember the Café Sinclair in Clay Lane, in the 50s and 60s? Used to sit there with a knickerbocker glory listening to the juke box. Wore out the record Jezabel ! I used to go there with my cousin, who sadly died in 1957, he used to meet his friends and then we would see if we could raise enough cash to have an afternoon at the Forum pictures. Happy days indeed !

Yes, Deano - but entered from the Burges as described in my post. Do you remember the place? Did it have a name?

Planning consent was granted for a Café Continental somewhere in or behind Hales Street in the 1950s. No other details available.

Hi all. Was there a café at the rear of the little arcade type shop in Hales Street? I seem to recall that you could walk straight through the shop with stalls on each side into Palmer Lane. I can vaguely remember a café being at the end of the stalls before exiting into Palmer Lane??

Hi Mick Yes I remember the cafe through the arcade. Went in there many a time with my two kids. Happy days.

If you remember it, Mick, then all is right with the world, well, with our small bit of the world, that is. I never entered the cafe from Hales Street, always approaching it, as I did, from some or other peace rally in the Precinct, but - for all that I think my old memory serves me well, it's always heartening when someone else recalls, particularly when that someone is you, Mick. But there were two others - Dutchman, having donned his research cap, and the good lady who remembers taking her children to the place. All I can say is WOW!

This is from google street view of Palmer Lane 2008, I'm sure there was a shop or something which stood on the right hand side, I remember it being painted white

Indeed Dean, you posted this picture of it yourself:

I thought I had but couldn't find it, thought I was imagining it

I am on the side of those misremembering the white shop, but it seems to me that such was my way back to Broadgate to travel home on the 20/20a, in preparation for a Saturday evening on the town. Of course, the "evening on the town" may well as been as far afield as the Mercers' Arms - not exactly downtown in the parlance of the times. I regret I cannot identify the tall building in the distance (the close distance), but I suspect it was the Leofric Hotel, but I'm certain there are people on this forum who will put me right on this issue. I raised a question on an earlier post concerning the Sherbourne's rising at this point. Is there anyone who might confirm this? Or have I had too many Dandelion & Burdocks from the good people at Lant's?

Longford Lad, Midland Red has a picture under "Coin shops in Coventry" no 15. The building in the background appears to be Axa Assurance

That's not my memory, but I'm sure it's correct. It seems - to me - a longer walk between the shops on the Burges, and that little well of comfort, privacy and who knows what else, that was that coffee bar. The size of the Leofric Hotel is exaggerated in my memory, and I cannot take into account a building that did not exist in my day, but I must be allowed a little outrage at the disappearance of the Gas Showrooms. Self-serve cafeteria style as it was, when I was fourteen or so, it was here that the height of culinary chic - postwar British-style - might be found. This was life in the fast lane. Sausage and chips I had tasted, egg and chips I had tasted, but sausage, egg and chips, with peas?! Who knew that such food was available in the world, let alone on Corporation Street at the Gas Showrooms? And, then, THE LOCARNO hovered into view! But another insurance company - ah, well... Thank you all, Mick from Nuneaton and Deano particularly, everybody really, for laying to rest some of my ghosts from the past. My son's life here in Toronto - final year in university and all - is, I'm sure - less problematic in terms of places still there/places now gone. Then, for us old folk, there was the Market, with its fruit-stalls (one was named E. Whatsize!), and the little paperback bookstall that could produce a classic at the drop of a hat. Such memories, the stuff of life.