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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask you to help me remember…(if you lived in Cambridge in the 90’s)

184 replies

WhyMeWhyNot21 · 23/07/2021 19:28

HELP!!!!

I’ve been Googling for hours with no luck and it’s slowly driving me round the bend!!

In the mid/late 90’s I used to go to a club/music venue with my mates, we’d watch local bands play. It was around Napier street/Cobblers yard and it was possibly the strip club - Talk of the town at some point before then.

Any ideas?
Thanks!

OP posts:
irresistibleoverwhelm · 23/07/2021 20:59

@clouds87

Yes it is...I have never moved further then 20 mins from Cambridge!

Does anyone remember going to The Junction? The 5 bands for a fiver night or something I think it was? I'm now 33 - love thinking back to my teens :)

Saw my first gig at the Junction - Britpop!
FurryGiraffe · 23/07/2021 21:03

Feeling so nostalgic reading this thread. I miss 90s Cambridge. It's just not the same any more.

whatswithtodaytoday · 23/07/2021 21:04

I remember Snowy Farr! I had the book too when I was little, and I loved seeing him and his mice. The statue they have now is awful - he would have made an amazing intricate bronze.

clouds87 · 23/07/2021 21:17

ah my first gig was sum41 at cambridge corn exchange.., love this thread - thanks

ProbablyGryffindor · 23/07/2021 21:21

@TravellingSpoon Chillis was amazing!! I had my 18th birthday meal there. The honey and mustard sauce - YUM!

churchroad · 23/07/2021 21:22

Techno night at the Junction! woop woop. Cindy's the usual meatmarket... always came out with no voice because of all the smoking.
Route 66 hasn't been mentioned, I think... that was totally scuzzy!

ProbablyGryffindor · 23/07/2021 21:26

I loved my jeans from Cult Clothing. And looking at all the photos on the wall in Gardenias. Drinking “squashed frogs” in the Red Cow (potentially name wrong), before quickly finishing assignments for Hills Road the next day.

I miss Cambridge so much, will finally be able to visit in October. All my family live there still. I can’t wait!!

Great thread OP!

Lapsidasicle · 23/07/2021 21:31

Yes I remember it, near what used to be the bead shop.

A very small club, definitely not a pub. I think they had lap dancing in a separate section, but I only went once for a music night.

It’s dead round there nowadays.

Lapsidasicle · 23/07/2021 21:41

The Cellar bar! Yes!!

My memories....

The smelly carpet at Chicago’s
Newcastle brown ale at the boat race
Dolcis shoe shop
Barneys on Mill Road
Deafening music in Cult Clothing
The Blue Boar on Trinity Street
Po nanas and the Fes (saw Bez there one night!)
Chillis restaurant- best place to eat back then
Jumping the fence into the Botanic gardens on the way home from a night in town. I now pay and enter respectfully through the gate Grin
Woolworths (now Next)
Snowy Farr and his mice

And a weird one...
The man who used to wear funny items on his head. He once had a real fish strapped to his head Confused

DysmalRadius · 23/07/2021 21:42

I used to work at the Boat Race! Sid Barratt used to come in occasionally for a port and there was a lovely guy called Dick who used to dance to EVERYTHING and a load of friendly builders who used to keep an eye on the place. Happy days... Smile

Lapsidasicle · 23/07/2021 21:47

@AChickenCalledDaal that place was called Effes!

Lapsidasicle · 23/07/2021 21:53

@TravellingSpoon Willie Thorne’s and spicy potatoes featured in my youth too! I’d forgotten all about them. I bet I went to Hills Road with some of you. That shows my age... it’s just known as ‘Hills’ now apparently!

TravellingSpoon · 23/07/2021 21:57

I lived off Mill Road and had Rory McGrath as a neighbour. I live in the Midlands now and I miss Bakers Oven at the bottom of Bradwells Court.

TravellingSpoon · 23/07/2021 21:58

That should start 'When I went to APU (as it was then)'

Formaldeheidi · 23/07/2021 22:01

Steps!! That’s what it was called. I’ve being trying to remember for so long. My mother’s favourite cafe and I remember it well. The brown leather sofas in the booths, smell of ciggies and the glass case with cake in at the counter.

Also a fan of Cult Clothing and Mayhem on the opposite side of the road.

Anyone for Laser Quest in Bradwell’s Court? Grin

Petal7 · 23/07/2021 22:01

Ahhh, Cult Clothing, Snowy, Dojo, egg and skinny chips at All Bar One (the height of sophistication!), coffee at the lovely Clowns...

I really miss the B Bar and Teriyaki on Quayside. They were our Saturdays for years pre children!!

DameCelia · 23/07/2021 22:06

@churchroad I spent many nights in Rout66.

Everyone talking about chili's, does anyone remember Footlights outside the Grafton centre?

ponygirlcurtis · 23/07/2021 22:07

Noooooo don't say Eraina is gone - many a comedy meal was had there. We would pretend it was someone's birthday and they'd bring out a rum baba with a candle in it. Simpler times...

irresistibleoverwhelm · 23/07/2021 22:12

@ponygirlcurtis

Noooooo don't say Eraina is gone - many a comedy meal was had there. We would pretend it was someone's birthday and they'd bring out a rum baba with a candle in it. Simpler times...
Ah, it’s now a cool artisanal foodie place that does artisanal pulled pork buns - the food is actually much much nicer 😂 though I haven’t been for a couple of years.

Cambridge used to be dead after 5pm and a food desert. Now it’s got gastro’d and gone upscale. Even the Anchor pub has become a gastro pub - last time I was in Cambridge I tried to go and the prices were too much for me! (Like £27 per main course!) I used to love getting a massive lasagne, chips and peas there and sitting in the window looking over the river. Sadly no more 😭

TravellingSpoon · 23/07/2021 22:18

I also remember the hype when The Regal opened as the largest Wetherspoons in the country or some such.

Bryonyshcmyony · 23/07/2021 22:21

@BelindaBumcrack

I can't help sorry, but I worked in Cambridge a lot during the 2000s. We used to go to a fabulous little restaurant that served all sorts of fabulous meals - Italian, Greek, Turkish etc. I've googled it but nothing that comes up looks familiar. It was in the centre of Cambridge, not that far from King's if I remember correctly. I suspect that it is long since closed but I would love to be reminded of what it was called. And if it is still open I want to go back there....
Omars?
Zilla1 · 23/07/2021 22:22

Visited a few times. Most of the places I visited seem to have closed.

Did Don Pasquale's bite the bullet after COVID?

Did Eraina bite the bullet when Corpus refused to renew the lease or massively increased the rent so the family retired?

What was the name of the restaurant on the edge of the pond/lake?

Did Waffles have an American proprietor with a Terry Thomas mustache? Remember a Chakhobhli georgian stew from there and a waffle.

What was the name of the kebab house in the centre?

Was Old Orleans the large American restaurant near the river? Closed too?

irresistibleoverwhelm · 23/07/2021 22:24

Do you mean “Agora at the Copper Kettle” opposite King’s? In the late 2000s I used to go a lot when they spruced it up in the old Copper Kettle. Was owned by the same family that owned Efes in King St? Did Turkish and Greek food, very cheap but nice. Don’t know if it’s still there.

Bryonyshcmyony · 23/07/2021 22:24

Late 80s...
Nettles the veggie takeaway
Cinderella Rockafellas, the world's most shite club
That takeaway on Mill Road that did the potatoes with lemon and spices, I still fantasise about them

irresistibleoverwhelm · 23/07/2021 22:25

@irresistibleoverwhelm

Do you mean “Agora at the Copper Kettle” opposite King’s? In the late 2000s I used to go a lot when they spruced it up in the old Copper Kettle. Was owned by the same family that owned Efes in King St? Did Turkish and Greek food, very cheap but nice. Don’t know if it’s still there.
Sorry this was meant for @BelindaBumcrack!