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?

Garlic, there was a Venue at New Cross I remember?
Ah just seen Gardening Club, Stokey - that was the one!
Remember The End too. Friend in music biz got me invite to opening.

And remember Swan in Stockwell, went a couple of times. They'd play the Irish anthem at the end of the night.

London 1998-2001

Yes to the routemasters and being able to jump on and off at will, i adored getting the bus along oxford street and just jumping off if i saw someone i knew or something interesting. I worked in Hoxton Square when i first arrived in London and went to work functions at the blue note. For a newly arrived person from NZ it was all a real eye opener and as far away from life in the suburbs back home as i could get. I am also irrationally disappointed to hear that benjys sandwich chain has closed, their cheap food was a lifesaver when trying to get established in a new country with little money and no safety net. Have wanted to bring children back to see London one day, but now realise that so much has changed. Thank you for this thread, it brings back many happy memories.

Just remembered another great night in Vauxhall. Cloud 23, under the arches. Dirty sweaty deep dark house that a good friend of mine ran. Very very messy nights.

In London 1996-2004.
Frequented Paradise at Kensal Rise and Monkey Chews in Chalk Farm then moved south of the river.

Best pub ever and I miss it still is The Bread and Roses in Clapham Common.

threestars I met my XH in Cicada :)

From the deep dark depths of my soaked memories..

The Church on Sunday lunchtime in Kings Cross (nothing like cracking a can open on the 9am tube into town)

Bagleys, Hombres just off Oxford St,
Camden market, Astoria, Bad Bobs in Covent Garden followed by the Roadhouse

Buying very baggy jogging bottoms & hoodies from MASH in Oxford St

Sure there's more that'll float back, ah happy days

I was a teenager in 90s London... I remember indie clubs like Looney Tunes, popscene and some night on a Thursday whose name I've forgotten but it involved a lot of kids shuffling to indie music and staring at their suede trainers. Astoria and LA2. Queuing for gig tickets. Camden market when it was full of army surplus and bongs, plus velvet jackets and 70s flares. Kensington market for blue nail polish and some much more alternative stuff (lots of rubber as I recall). Hyper Hyper as someone mentioned. Covent garden for cheap silver jewellery, tiny earrings you'd buy in 5s. Travel card for the day was £1.60. Taxis wouldn't go south of the river. Everything was grubbier, and less international.

threestar
...Then Clerkenwell - 3 Kings, Cicada restaurant, Duke of York (known as the red pub instead though).

YY to all those! We moved office to Clerkenwell in the late 90s and Cicada was our local. It closed down last year though . There was a whole spate of bars opening round there at that time, inc the original Match bar. And of course Vic Naylors! - they were in Clerkenwell long before everyone else, spent many a late night in there. Also gone though...

This bring as back so many memories. I worked at BroadcastIng House in the early 90's, also in Mayfair.

We use to come out of work,go to The Coach and. Horses, the The Patio,mor Dover Street wine Bar, or Caspers, the phone restaurant.

A friend had party at a place called Smolsensky's Baloon and we ended up with a 'lock in' and us dancing on the tables.

My flat mate was a waiter on The Yacht, a fairly posh restaurant on the river. A well known male ballet dancer at the time - of short stature - would frequently proposition him!

The Tattersall Castle, another boat moored on the Embankment was somewhere else to go, full of Aussies and Kiwis. The floor was sticky and you daren't sit on the seats.

Karaoke was just coming in then and we would go to a bar in the city, drink Soporro (Japanese beer in shiny tins) and belt out 'I will survive' by Gloria Gaynor. Some nights we didn't go to bed! Couldn't do it now.

A posh boyfriend took me to The Greenhouse, a restaurant at a hotel off Hyde Park, the meal cost £70 and we didn't even have dessert, I nearly fell off my chair.

Happy Days

BringMeTea, my friend worked at the Bread and Roses... I used to hand over a tenner for the drinks and she'd give it back to me in change

Hoxton bar and grill was a cinema no?

Cicada was my work local in the late 90s too!

tethersend Yes, it was the kind of place where her boss would've approved! The manager was lovely. His name escapes me but he once gave me and my friend a free round late on a Sunday afternoon/evening on the premise that we would attend the Performance Poetry event the next week. God, what was his name? Strawberry blonde and slight build with glasses.

Ahhhhh...bringing back some lovely memories.

The weird thing is that the 'corporatisation' (or whatever you want to call it) of London, I think has gone hand in hand with the younger generation becoming so materialistic and un-individual. I was complaining to dh the other day about his cousins, all about 10 years younger than us, and how obsessed they are with jewellery, flash cars, money, expensive restaurants. It just all seems so soulless and soul destroying.

Its not just London that has changed - people have changed, and actually scarily rapidly.

(I'm 41 and worked/ lived centrally from 1995 to 2000. Now I'm an East Londoner and it is better here).

YY I think the average person in their 20s-30s would be horrified by how we lived then. Squats, raves, bikes, unlicensed and uncertified premises...Not all clean and sparkly and organised like now.

Sadly with an increase in hygiene has come a loss of imagination and a loss of community spirit.

Back then if yer feet and fanny was clean you'd be ready to party!

Does anyone remember the Drum Club?

What about Rikky Tik's in Soho?

Ok really long shot: who remembers Kettle of Fish? A tiny monthly house night in Edgware rd

I remember Riki Tiks!

Mandy + Merry I think you're right about the organisation and corporatisation of society in general. I still go to festivals, but they are much more mainstream and sanitised these days. eg at Glastonbury in the 90s you'd have to go searching for the party late at night (invariably some travellers with a sound system) or you'd start a party yourself. Nowadays there are loads of late night acts laid on and good signposting to get you there I think now that people expect to be entertained, as spectators, whereas it used to be more about the participation IYSWIM?
Same with the rave era - Saturday nights at the motorway services hanging around (without phones) to find out which field the party would be in, setting off in convoy trying to dodge the police. To me it seems much more adventurous (and chaotic) than how young people socialise now.

But we all think 'our era' is best, don't we? I'm sure my parents think that about their era as well

It seems to me (I could be wrong) that at some point in the late 90s or early 00s it became normal for everything to look new, and if it did not, it was not acceptable. all flats started to be painted between tenancies and a less than pristinely decorated finish became not good enough to let at all. phones, shoes, cars, everything, all started to have to look as if you got it that week. Am I imagining this? and that it wasn't like that before?

I remember riki tiks too

The cinema was next door tethersend. But maybe we were right all along??!

Hey LucianoThere was a bar next to Match bar too, but I can't remember its name. I lived in an old poky flat with no heating just off Hatton Gardens. I was v. excited when Clerkenwell House opened.
Did you ever go to the studios? They were artists' studios by Farringdon tube station. Lovely bunch of people. Dazed & Confused and/or The Idler used to have parties there, and the Tank Girl party was there too (didn't go though, unfortunately!)

vezzie: they built new flats by Chancery Lane and I remember wishing that I could buy one - they were £100,000. Still wish I had - must be a fortune now!
I remember Riki Tiks - on the corner, right? With ceiling to floor windows all around and pool table downstairs, I think.

Beyond we clearly are reprobate mothers taking our darling children to Gordon's

cuppatea