has mono got a chain yet?
yes! well: it did have. stereo, in the west end [1]. but i believe it's now shut.
you'd think they'd have learned their lesson: mono, IIRC, was started by refugees from the 13th note, which fucked up royally (the 13th note on king street was being run by receivers for a long time; fuck knows who has it now) when it opened a second premises.
[1] actually, not really the west end but the arse end of argyle street and a total PITA to get to.
― grimly fiendish, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:38 (sixteen years ago) link
was stereo twice the size as mono? i was hoping there'll be another chain called meningitis or something.
can someone take me somewhere nice to eat this saturday?
― ken c, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:42 (sixteen years ago) link
that flying duck club is part of mono i think.
― jed_, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Do we know that the UK has more chain restaurants than the US? It doesn't seem likely to me, especially with the US casual dining places like Denny's et al.
― dowd, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:51 (sixteen years ago) link
of course it has less!
― jed_, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:52 (sixteen years ago) link
per capita, or whatever I mean. Isn't Tracer's argument that the UK favours chain restaurants more than anywhere else?
― dowd, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:54 (sixteen years ago) link
it certainly doesn't have less, but most probably fewer
― ken c, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:56 (sixteen years ago) link
i don't have an argument, i have a question!
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 5 November 2007 17:59 (sixteen years ago) link
The old Stereo is now 78, still owned by the Mono folk. And a new Stereo in town has just opened up on Renfield Lane (I'm going there tonight! I love me those chains). Plus The Flying Duck, yes.
― Alba, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:00 (sixteen years ago) link
xpost Ah, okay. I just hadn't noticed any glut of chain restaurants. But I live in a Scots town of just less than 20,000 folk, and we only got our first fast food place a couple of years ago.
― dowd, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:02 (sixteen years ago) link
was it an american chain?
― jed_, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:02 (sixteen years ago) link
have fun selling out to your colonialist pigdog masters, Alba
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:03 (sixteen years ago) link
x-post - yeah, subway. :(
― dowd, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:05 (sixteen years ago) link
And a new Stereo in town has just opened up on Renfield Lane (I'm going there tonight! I love me those chains)
rly? whereabouts?
― grimly fiendish, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:16 (sixteen years ago) link
also, ken: is it this w/e you're up? 'cos i'll almost certainly be on arran :(
― grimly fiendish, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:17 (sixteen years ago) link
Renfield Lane isn't very long.
― Alba, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:17 (sixteen years ago) link
i can't actually think which one renfield lane is. what else is on it?
― grimly fiendish, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:32 (sixteen years ago) link
nothing it is a shit old lane between hope st and renfield st. one up from gordon st in front of central station
― RJG, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I thought that was Drury Street/Lane?
― onimo, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:52 (sixteen years ago) link
No wait that's one over isn't it?
― onimo, Monday, 5 November 2007 18:53 (sixteen years ago) link
ban glasgow
― DG, Monday, 5 November 2007 20:32 (sixteen years ago) link
BANG LASGOW?
― El Tomboto, Monday, 5 November 2007 20:33 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/music/reviews/singles/2002/02/25/something01.jpg
― Dom Passantino, Monday, 5 November 2007 21:06 (sixteen years ago) link
that is one over
― RJG, Monday, 5 November 2007 21:32 (sixteen years ago) link
love me some chili's
also i love the smoking ban. even when i was a smoker i appreciated it so i could get outdoors and potentially talk to some cute boy while asking for a light. ;)
― homosexual II, Monday, 5 November 2007 22:20 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm going to see acid mothers temple at this Stereo hole on the 16th Nov, so wld like to hear Alba's verdict
also, sunburned hand of the man at nice n sleazy this saturday
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 5 November 2007 22:29 (sixteen years ago) link
It is a big cavernous hole. They left all the urinals at The Flying Duck.
― Alba, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 00:06 (sixteen years ago) link
"independent stores give neighborhoods character and identity"
is the one thing that they might have to recommend them.
i don't know if it's true.
but to draw a few things together, i live -- at the moment -- equidistant between a co-op and a franchise corner shop. i can't remember what franchise, because it changes all the time. at one point i did a paper round for the franchise, at one point i worked behind the till at the co-op.
can't really say either of these provided either character or identity, but then the same goes for the three other comparable shops, including the newest, a polish place, in the area. there was no difference between the co-op and the londis (or whatever it was) either.
the co-op recognizes my grandmother and are sympathetic when, say, i have to go round and ask if they've seen her (she wanders) in the last half hour, etc. but of all the places i've lived, having a convenient place to buy milk hasn't added much, character-wise, to the community.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 11:46 (sixteen years ago) link
damnit GF! arran doesn't even have a mono!
― ken c, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 11:48 (sixteen years ago) link
I think it's hard to get past the class aspect. In the UK, being a foodie is essentially a middle class phenomenon. It's largely the middle classes who buy their meat and veg from Borough market or patronise the boutique delicatessens and specialist cheese shops. That's simply not the case in France and Italy, where the food culture cuts across the classes far more, which is why a place like Paris can support so many markets, so many cheese shops, bakeries, butchers and what have you.
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 12:06 (sixteen years ago) link
i think that's true, and is possibly a big reason for the chain store phenom, since individual proprietorship either means "greasy glass worker's caf" or "snooty bullshit"
FWIW i don't think i've ever bought anything at borough market, although i do like to go marvel at the harts hanging on hooks around christmastime. with the prices there it might as well be harrod's.
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 12:09 (sixteen years ago) link
i went to borough market just cos i was spending time at the hospital there. it was full of ghastly people like me.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 12:11 (sixteen years ago) link
How frightful for you
― Tom D., Tuesday, 6 November 2007 12:14 (sixteen years ago) link
^troll
― DG, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 12:15 (sixteen years ago) link
borough market is only appealing for people who love queueing for half an hour for a bacon sandwich.
proper foodie go to nag's head market innit.
― ken c, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 12:19 (sixteen years ago) link
I know I do
― Tom D., Tuesday, 6 November 2007 12:22 (sixteen years ago) link
Starbucks is easier to find in London than New York
!!!!!!!!!
― ^@^, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:14 (sixteen years ago) link
iT'S TRUE!
― Mark G, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:16 (sixteen years ago) link
One thing to be said in favour of all those London coffee chains was that before they arrived, it was pretty difficult to get espresso coffee in London. They may have replaced all the greasy caffs, but most of them only served instant. Back in the eighties, you practically had to trek to the Bar Italia in Soho to get a drinkable coffee.
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link
exactly. not that i was around then. but exactly.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link
lord knows how i remember this, but david fincher once said the same thing re. los angeles.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:24 (sixteen years ago) link
One of the best restaurants I've ever been to was a run-down Italian place in central London called the 'Centrale'. You could grab a huge plate of delicious pasta (with chilli sauce/other toppings) for about three quid.
Oh, if that's the place I think it is, I found it once by chance a long time ago, and it was lovely.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:27 (sixteen years ago) link
Who needs coffee when you have beer?
― Tom D., Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:33 (sixteen years ago) link
Who needs turnstiles when you have ennui?
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:42 (sixteen years ago) link
You lost me there
― Tom D., Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:43 (sixteen years ago) link
sorry to bang on this relatively minor point but if you really think it's easier to find a starbucks in london than bleeding new york, you were actually in new jersey
― ^@^, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:50 (sixteen years ago) link
I strolled the length and breadth of NYC last week, and it was certainly my impression that there were fewer Starbucks. Especially considering how many of the NYers I talked to were complaining about how bland and corporate Manhattan had become!
― Stevie T, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 14:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Yep, there are more Starbucks in Central London than Manhattan. Depressing as that is.
― Anna, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 15:01 (sixteen years ago) link
is the new stereo in the rennie mackintosh old daily record printworks?!
― czn, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 15:05 (sixteen years ago) link
it is hard to conceive of somewhere with more starbucks than central london.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 15:06 (sixteen years ago) link