Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Campaign to open a new nice cafe on Green Lanes
Don't get me wrong - I love all the kebab shops, and antipilar cafe does good mezze - but wouldn't it be really great to have either a lovely,french patisserie like the one in newington green over here, or a nice, slightly upmarket chain like a giraffe cafe? i really feel like there is somewhere missing on green lanes - you have to go to crouch end, stokey or newington green for any lazy sunday brunches, or mid week treats for yummy mummies, or someone nice and relaxing to meet your friends. i want to collect enough support to show one of the managers of these sorts of places that there is the demand for it on green lanes. does anyone out there feel the same way as me? i moved to the area 8 months ago from highbury and miss the cafes most of all!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Eddie Finnegan on
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This site is rapidly becoming something of a streetcar of (competing) desires.
I made the mistake of bringing a friend to breakfast at the Muswell Hill Giraffe on one of the Easter Bank Holidays. Within 20 minutes what was a very pleasant ambience was swamped by a swarm (collective noun used advisedly) of those yummy mummies + offspring + haphazardly parked Range Rover 4x4 Child Conveyances. We fled, abandoning our half consumed coffee and flapjacks and flinging our money towards the waitress. I still wake up in cold sweats at the memory before falling to my bedside mat to praise God'n'Allah for Harringay as is. But yes, I suppose yummy mummies need to meet somewhere, if only "because they're worth it"!
We may resent (while professing our love for some aspects of) the asiaminorization/kebabification of Harringay's food sector - raw and cooked. At least they haven't taken over the pubs, we whisper - but wot's that we hear about the Queen's Head? And look what happened its diagonal opposite, the Railway Bar/Tavern on Wightman Rd.
Fact (1) is, for most of us, all this happened on our watch.
Fact (2) is, for all our wishful yearning for a cafe culture that never was, the family proprietors of all those Turkish and Kurdish emporia probably have a better gut-feeling for business and for the needs/wants of our real Harringay demographic than we could ever imagine.
That said, however, I agree with much of what Liz, Birdy2 and Hugh said:
Places change, and change with desirable variety can be planned for.
Council clout needs to be exploited, and a Harringay Charter can be the vehicle for that.
We need to 'use it or lose it'.
No mummification of Harringay - but, equally, no yummification.
Seems to me we need models - we need to devise them rather than import them, or rather than wait for some market-driven chain to drop them on us.
For example: if it could be shown that several of our desideranda* (according to posts on this site) would win favour and support from enough residents on HOL and from other stakeholder residential groups, could this lead to setting up a co-operative in a suitably large commercial premises on some prominent corner of Grand Parade.
(* good quality family restaurant; small low-food-miles organic/allotment-fed food outlet; bookshop-new/2nd hand - maybe a BGB local branch; meeting rooms/Hq for HOL and other RA groups .... etc.)
Obviously much time, effort, consultation towards consensus and common purposes would be entailed. A project leading to a visibly attractive product with at least a 10-year projection.
Oh yes and something like 100 partners (committed Harringay dwellers) willing to sink, say, £5K or £10K up front for a 10-year period; plus a further 100 committed to, say, £50 per month over the same period. And of course a dozen or so residents with relevant skills, business acumen and goodwill.
You may notice that my Modest Proposal needs some fine-tuning - but as a counter-balance to wishful thinking it might be a modest beginning.
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Permalink Reply by DavidJ on
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I had a good cafe type meal at the Meze (?) cafe near the Barclays a few weeks ago (I'm not sure of the name, it used to be 'Erenler' and years before that it was a great traditional Cafe called 'Alisons'). The food was much better and cheaper than I had in a branch of 'Giraffe' in Russel Square recently. Intriguely they have a smoking garden with lots of 'hookas' with a whole menu of different flavour tobbaco available.
I think I may be too old to understand 'The Garden Ladder' - it isn't a pub, its more like a restaurant, but you can't take children in? I don't understand.
Cafe Lemon have go it right by being cheap and much as I am a fan of Baldwins I suspect the price of the set breakfast would have to go up if Baldwins were supplying the sausages.
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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The Garden Ladder aint no young joint David. I would say in essence it's a pub, although not as traditional as some. It serves ale, which no 'bar' I've ever been into has offered.
The GL also uses all the provisions from the local shops for it's menu, including Baldwins.
I think the fact that it's in amongst shops not in a traditional location throws people, but the OAE use to be a car showroom in the seventies.
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I just remember the OAE as a 2nd hand car place so that must be early mid-eighties? Maybe when the children are grown up I will try the GL, it just seems a bit odd that you can't take children in - and maybe raises too many associations with 'winebars'.
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Permalink Reply by RuthE on
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I agree, the Garden Ladder doesnt work for me either. I still miss Jasmins (Balti Towers) with the mood swing waiters and shouting fights in the kitchen, never a dull moment with excellent food
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The Jasmin as a sit down was awful, the food was really drab in my opinion but weirdly the take always we always found to be okay, although I'd usually had a couple in the Suffolk Punch opposite before hand?
Regarding the GL, everyone wants something fresh and new, which the GL is then they never support it, that's why no market breaking businesses are opening here.
I would very much doubt whether anything "Guardian-esque" : ) would succeed on Green Lanes and when all said and done there isn't the market for it.
As much as we all harp on here about better shops and cafes, HOL is not representative of Harringay’s cultural or economical diverse community, and the various businesses along Green Lanes state this.
As much as I like the Salisbury, it isn’t the hub of Harringay and soon we could see ourselves without various middle of the road shops and cafes in our quest to want more upmarket establishments, loosing out all round.
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Is still miss the Jasmin terribly. The food was remarkably good. The problem was that it looked like a tired old curry house and the owners knew that but didn't want to invest to revamp it. I had a weekly take awy ffrom there for many years.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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We have had discussions about this kind of thing before,
http://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topic/show?id=844301%3ATopic%3...
I would also like to see a little exhibition space for the material on here that shows Harringay's past as it seems a shame that it is all online and not out in the 'real' world for people to see as well.
Something for the future, I feel, as we start to act rather than react to shape the local community. Bet there's cash out there somewhere, how about the empty shop that used to be a travel agents opposite the OAE, very convenient for some fans of that particular establishment, eh Birdy?
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Good to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Sorry - i don't get a chance to get online as often as some of you - hence the delay in adding another comment. I will mull things over and may yet start up a petition to see how many people would use a nice cafe and how regularly - to send to some possible businesses.
I don't think it's a hopeless task - even green lanes can evolve. Plenty areas around it have - even finsbury park. And i don't think it's a bad aim to try to make our high street have some more appealing places to hang out on it. I'm not sure where the money one person suggested investing in the project would go? surely we don't need to pay a business to come here? and i don't want to start my own one up... i think getting numbers and an idea of who would use the place and how often is the best starting point.
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No, Jo. I don't think anyone suggested 'paying a business to come here'. There are many businesses one might pay to stay away. And I don't think anyone thought you were about to start one up on your own. Most people who have been posting on HOL for the past year (or who have lived here for the past five, ten, twenty, thirty ... eighty+ years) know that "even Green Lanes can evolve", which is what it has been doing hereabouts for at least the past 130 years or so.
I suspect that the 'one person' who mentioned a sizeable investment of real money was trailing an idea of something more 'co-operative', not guardianesque or utopian,reflective of suggestions already voiced here on HOL and elsewhere, but grounded in a much wider canvassing of 'what Harringay needs and will support'. As Birdy2 says, HOL is not representative of Harringay's diverse community. Simple petitions from any of us on HOL (even if we get 800+ responsive clicks) won't add up to much.
No, I have no ideological objections to the entrepreneurial spirit, nor to a nice cafe or three.
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