why must every moderately successful store in the UK be immediately turned into a chain?

i can't actually think which one renfield lane is. what else is on it?

nothing it is a shit old lane between hope st and renfield st. one up from gordon st in front of central station

I thought that was Drury Street/Lane?

No wait that's one over isn't it?

ban glasgow

BANG LASGOW?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/music/reviews/singles/2002/02/25/something01.jpg

that is one over

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. ;)

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

It is a big cavernous hole. They left all the urinals at The Flying Duck.

"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.

damnit GF! arran doesn't even have a mono!

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.

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.

i went to borough market just cos i was spending time at the hospital there. it was full of ghastly people like me.

How frightful for you

^troll

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.

I know I do

Starbucks is easier to find in London than New York

!!!!!!!!!

iT'S TRUE!

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.

exactly. not that i was around then. but exactly.

lord knows how i remember this, but david fincher once said the same thing re. los angeles.

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.

Who needs coffee when you have beer?

Who needs turnstiles when you have ennui?

You lost me there

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

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!

Yep, there are more Starbucks in Central London than Manhattan. Depressing as that is.

is the new stereo in the rennie mackintosh old daily record printworks?!

it is hard to conceive of somewhere with more starbucks than central london.

in a kantian sense.

dunkin donuts/baskin-robbins and bank branch offices have replaced starbucks as the preeminent nyc real estate scourge.

162 Starbucks within five miles of Borders Charing X!

http://www.starbucks.com/retail/locator/PrxResults.aspx?a=1&LOC=51.5146493429756%3a-0.12947326600996&CT=51.5146493429756%3a-0.129473266009966.76880352077202%3a5.07660264057902&countryID=242&FC=RETAIL&dataSource=MapPoint.EU&Radius=5&GAD2=&GAD3=+WC2H+0JR&GAD4=United+Kingdom&IC=51.5146493429756%3a-0.12947326600996%3a32%3a+WC2H+0JR

WAIT THERES A PLACE CALLED MASALA ZONE LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

yah dunkies is a rash spreading down from boston

GIMMME A BIG ONE AND A CRULLAH

i have never heard of masala zone. is that really a thing?

its a thing. you should try it. eating in zones is cool.

A while ago I walked the whole length of Oxford St from Marble Arch to Tottenham Ct Rd. It was quite bizarre because you get about three iterations of all the chainstores: Starbucks, Borders, Boots, Next, whatever, and then fifteen minutes later they all come up again. And then again. Like you're in some weird space/time loop.

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 (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

No, we were definitely in NY, Empire State, WTC, Chrysler, Trump, Central Park Zoo, all that!

A while ago I walked the whole length of Oxford St from Marble Arch to Tottenham Ct Rd. It was quite bizarre because you get about three iterations of all the chainstores: Starbucks, Borders, Boots, Next, whatever, and then fifteen minutes later they all come up again. And then again. Like you're in some weird space/time loop.

-- Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 3:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

cartoon background. this is true of most of the country though. bank, mobile phone shop, pub, pound shop, indian, bank...

my oystercard doesn't cover masala zone ;_;

according to starbucks.com, there are at least 300 starbucks in manhattan alone (i think this is what the search results max out at) and 206 in all of london.

206 + costa coffees + caffe neros = ?????

plus coffee republic. And Pret, EAT, and all that.

theres two starbucks in the mall down the street