90's London

[Sweetasstevia]

I've lived in London for nearly 25 years now but rarely get into the centre these days (I last worked in town in 2008.) I'm always stunned how much things have changed and have been feeling very nostalgic lately for the London of my uni years and youth: 1990 - 2000.
For starters I miss how Covent Garden used to be with the mechanical toy museum and Neal street East around the corner. I miss burgers at Ed's Diner and Jonny Rockets. I miss seeing arty films at the ICA, the montepulicano lounge club and whirligig, the mad market in South Kensington and how Camden used to be before it got all posh!
What things do you miss?

I'm still reading & remembering. We actually must have known one another by sight, at least I had fashionable jobs in the 80s & early 90s, and am in some of the films & photos from the era ... this morning I applied for sheltered housing

Can't remember who posted "stilettoes & lace gloves" but I guffawed in public! It was always either head-to-foot black or OTT dress-up, wasn't it?

This thread made me to open the vodca i was keeping for christmas.
Cheers to all of you!
Cheers to OP and thank you.

Cheers to Garlic and i hope you get the housing x

There were long queues for clubs, d'you remember? It was very uncool to queue, you just marched to the front and were let in, either because they knew you well or you were outrageously good-looking. The length of the queues was due to frumpy people arguing with the door minders about their undesirability as customers. Shocking when you think about it (but not, because we were IN!)

Cheers, Laq That should really be some ridiculous-flavoured vodka, only available in one bar

Haha, yes to being uncool to queue! I remember that. And I remember when I was a bit younger and queuing and being appalled that all those people were just PUSHING IN (and wanting to be one of them). I bet some of us absolutely did know each other a bit.

Good luck with the housing, Garlic.

If I were to revisit my 80s/90s drinking days, it would have to be Southern Comfort. Appalling stuff. It's probably good that I don't have any in the house.

Ah garlic vodca near leicester sq?

i bought my secondhand levis from ken market and they were double what the new ones were

there was a night called 'feet first' iirc at camden palace. I saw Pop Will Eat Itself at the Town and Country Club. i remember going to a club on Kingly Street and being invited straight into the VIP area on the launch of one of those new novelty alcopop things called Sub Zero. I remember sitting there sipping this rancid concoction next to Samantha Janus. Totally made it!!

I worked for a record company in the 90s and flat shared with a (non famous) indie band so I was always going to gigs as well. One thing this thread has made me realise, is how lively/varied my social life was back then - no wonder I'm so knackered these days

This thread is brilliant! How could I posibly have forgotten the Elvis impersonator restaurant in Streatham?!

We spent many, many nights bar hopping in Soho. The O Bar, the Atlantic, etc ending up either at parties in people's flats, illegal all night bars and Bar Italia (home of the worlds worst toilets back then) for sunrise.

It was awesome. Everyone should live in London at some point in their lives.

Yy to the Arts Club and Shuttleworth's/Phoenix. Sadly Maurice passed away a few years ago.

Also The Conservatory near Centre Point.

Oh burgers at Ed's!! :( I miss all of it. Bagels down Brick Lane on a Sunday after I'd been to that flower market...what's it called...

Anyone remember the Queen's Head in Turnpike Lane, now there was a dodgy rock pub...

Yay, Meg. Hello. I knew Maurice had died. He was a sweetie and I really liked the cat tours where he would wander about with a cat in his arms and randomly give custody of it to someone who looked, well, I don't know. Trustworthy? Catloving? Cheerful? I found drinking while having a cat on my lap a very soothing and happy thing.

Columbia Road is the flower market, I think.

Does anyone remember the pleasure rooms in Tottenham? Fond memories of getting wasted in there

Oh god, all the old clubs! Bagleys, Club UK, Wag, Gossips, Limelight, The Site, Labyrinth, Milk Bar, can't remember half of them, my brain must be addled

There was an after hours cafe at the top end of Charing Cross road that played minimal techno & let people smoke weed, can't remember what that was called.

Lunches at Stockpot definitely, like school dinners. Jam roly poly & custard.

Huge C&A on Oxford street (random, don't think I ever went there), Ken Market, Hyper Hyper, The Garage on Kings Rd anyone? Became Bluebird.

I feel ancient.

OMG I must come back and read this thread properly tomorrow.

I've never lived in London but had a relationship with someone "in the music business" whilst I was at Uni so spent 2 years going there most weekends.

From skimming through the thread the things that jump out that I remember include:

Ed's Diner (our first date)
Camden Falcon
Gigs at the Astoria, T&C, LSE etc
Worlds End (and Camden in general)
Vintage 501s from Camden
Kensington Market

(although technically I guess I'm talking late 80s rather than 90s)

What a fantastic thread, this has brought back so many memories! I moved to London after art school in 1996 and lived there until 2001. I was lucky enough to work in some brilliant places - Kings Road, Covent Garden - and live in some areas I'd never afford now - we were 2 roads down from Northcote Road, who knew it would get so posh and pricey?!

I had one of my first dates with DH in a dodgy nightclub on the Kings Road and another in Ed's in Covent Garden. We used to go to Pollo and the Stockpot a lot as well (first job - always skint!) but then later to Oriel in Sloane Square and Henry J Bean's. My mates and I hung round in Camden a lot during the Britpop era, always hoping to bump into Blur but never managing it. I lived on Benjy's cheese toasties when I was pregnant with DD - best morning sickness cure ever! I loved shopping on Kensington High Street and at the markets - always like Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning.

It definitely doesn't feel the same when you go back to London now even though some things are nicer (eg fresh new St Pancras station with shops and bars if your train is delayed instead of grubby old Kings Cross with bugger all). I miss it loads and drive DD mad if we go down for the day pointing out all my old haunts! It never leaves you though, I still know the tube lines and bus routes like I always did and am not fussed about being in such a big city whereas my friends who've never lived there find it all a bit daunting :).

whizzPopBang That after hours cafe/club - was it an upstairs venue and pretty much opposite what was the Astoria? We used to go there at around 5 am and it would play chill loungey type music and you couldn't breathe without getting high (er), there was so much dope being smoked! But again it was probably a bit later, around 2003.

Got it! The club with the washing machines was Trash at Plastic People!

I was heartbroken to see the Isobar

Loved that place - was packed and rocking! Breaks my heart everytime I go pass on the bus to see Sainsbury's trampling all over my memories

Has anyone mentioned The Purple Turtle?

Did anyone else ever sneak into the student union bar at SOAS where everyone used to go to get stoned?

Whizz the Stockpot! Bagleys! Why are you doing this to me!

Oh, Quibbler, I think I remember that place! It was surprisingly smart inside? The name's escaped with some of the neurons I killed having a good time

There was also a really cool basement bar on Shaftesbury Avenue, right near Cambridge Circus, which was my first thought for Whizz's weed-tolerant bar + techno. Hardly anybody knew it was there but, once you'd found it, you were welcome like family :)

I was doing a lot of wild Latin-American dancing in the mid-nineties. There was a not-very-legal club upstairs at Holborn, which was the real deal, and I also discovered that if you danced salsa at the Sol (the downstairs, sweaty one in Soho) you got free jugs of margharita all night. I'd been going there for years, as it never closed, but never knew that before!