Restaurants, Cafes, Coffee Bars

I'm afraid it's not even that now. I believe it's in the process of being converted to even more student accommodation!

The two photographs fooled me completely, but it has been some fifty years since last I was on Palmer Lane. I thought the view - generally - was in a southerly direction. Much tramping around the city via Google Maps-Street View make it abundantly clear that the view is more northerly. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I usually visited the coffee bar by way of the Burges lane-way, and left the cafe taking the Palmer Lane up to Cross Cheaping (more accurately, perhaps, to the Burges then on to Cross Cheaping, and up the covered walk-way to Broadgate. Did I say fifty fifty years since my Palmer Lane days? Occasionally it feels like more years than that, occasionally it seems like yesterday. Life! Don't ya just luv it?! According to my Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1995), palmer once meant a pilgrim who had visited the Holy Land (and had a palm leaf/branch to confirm as much), or an itinerant monk under a vow of poverty (Middle English by way of Anglo French - palmer, Old French - palmier, and Latin - palmarias, meaning pilgrim). Of course, Palmer Lane is but a hop, skip and a jump from where Coventry's old, old cathedral once stood, and where its old cathedral still stands, albeit in ruins. I imagine the Burges derives its name from Burgess, the Middle English name for an inhabitant of a town or borough, especially one with full municipal rights (source: same edition of the Concise OED).

The Burges apparently means 'The Bridges', as that area was near or between two bridges. Or something.

Pursuant to the Sherbourne's being visible (ground-level) on Palmer Avenue, my extensive research (which means my check of Around Historic Coventry: River Sherbourne - Palmer Lane & Beyond at this very site) confirms my recollection. The river is visible on Palmer Lane. If all research might be so easy...

Well spotted, Flapdoodle. "Burges is a corruption of 'between the bridges', as it stood between the bridges over the Sherbourne and Radford Brook." - from Tim Lambert's online History of Coventry. I know where the Sherbourne is, but Radford Brook is a mystery to me. Perhaps Burges really means "between the Sherbourne and the Gas Showrooms, as such existed in the 1950s".

Does anybody out there remember our group The Versatile Five based in the Gigi coffee bar?

I'm afraid I barely remember the Gigi (extreme left) or indeed the building to the right of it which also looks like a café? Pictures of Coventry

I don't remember a group ever playing at the 'Gigi', it was very small. Perhaps it was after my time, late 1950s/early 60s.

I never actually set foot inside the Gigi, it wasn't exactly a "child friendly" establishment. According to planning records there was another café at No.15 Gosford Street called the "Fryer Tuck" I have no recollection of. This was roughly opposite what is now the Whitefriars Inn. It was built as an ironmongers in 1951 but operated by the Lanchester College as a café between 1959 and 1965. This is not to be confused with the later "Friar Tuck" which was a chicken takeaway built a few doors away at No.20 on the site of the former Baptist Chapel.

The name rings a bell, was the Sombrero just round the corner in Ford Street?

Cox Street Pictures of Coventry

If I remember rightly, one of the ring-road elevated sections was built above the Sombrero café before it was finally demolished.

Thanks for the photo Dutchman, there were lots of these small cafes around, I have no doubt I have used them all at some time or other. My problem is remembering just where they were.

Does anyone remember The Top Ten café that used to be in Spon End? It was a café the Mods used in the early 60s, they would line the scooters up along the kerbside.

D-Di said "I remember Brookies being on Albany Road, roughly opposite the end of Winifred Avenue. This was around 1970. We used to walk through the park from school to Albany Road at lunchtimes and a couple of lads used Brookies regularly. I preferred to go further down the road to Stan's Plaice for chips, often followed by a pint of Marston's in the Albany pub. Brookies interior was white tiles, so it got the nickname 'The Clinic'. " I remember the place you mean. From 1960 - 61, I used to work behind the shop opposite, next to the Astoria. The shop was Sibley-Hindley's. It was only a facade to their real business which was as a photo-processing house for chemists around the town - though the boss, Alan Curall, did weddings on Saturdays. I developed the films on a daily basis before they went downstairs for printing. We processed films for the 2 Timothy Whites & Taylors shops and also Welton's the Chemist in the High Street close to the District Bank. The other chemists we processed for were scattered throughout the town. Our main competitors were Beryl Houghton's in Queen Victoria Road. Alan Curall had been an army photographer and I joined up in 1962 to follow in his footsteps.