Shops in SG: Are Standards Falling?

TollingtonTom

Yes the butchers at the bottom of Crouch Hill is the best. It used to rejoyce in the name Meat Master but was renamed a year or so ago. The do a lot of restaurants so have access to a surprising range of stuff.

kreuzkav

@ADGS. You're right about Church St. in Stoke Newington. I remember living there back in the 90s, not on Church Street but on the other side of Stoke Newington High St. around the Common. At that stage all the Church Street middle-class mummies wore headscarves (seemed to be fashionable around then for some reason). Church St. is a pleasant street but a bit too middle-class village-like. | get waves of nostalgia for Stokey from time to time as I was born ( from non yummie-mummy Irish working class parents,) in Hackney and lived on Brooke Road for the first few years of my life. When I returned to London at the age of 18, I lived around there again.

The Convenience Store, on the way up to Sainsburys top-ups oyster cards but charges a 50 p additional charge if you use a credit/debit card, or did do so when I tried to pay without cash a few months ago.

ADGS

I very seldom try to pay by card in smaller shops. And I realised this morning that I'd missed perhaps the most convenient Oyster shop for bus users - the Post Office! Which also has its own cashpoint, so the doubling back would be a matter of two feet, tops.

Was in Crouch End this afternoon and dear heavens, the middle class families! Five abreast, some of them, plus small yappy dog and overbuilt pram for the youngest. Exterminate the brutes!

andy

Nothing so tedious as a working class hero in 2011.

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tosscat

When I went past Milano the man inside seemed to have his head buried in his hands, crying. When I saw his stock I nearly joined him. On the plus side, they've managed to make X-it's window display seem of higher quality.

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Arkady

<wrong thread>

ADGS

I know a couple of people who might buy things from Milano if the prices were significantly lower. I'll be sure to let them know come the inevitably imminent closing down sale.

Ed B

Dudley's seems to now be some kind of Turkish restaurant. Hooray.

miss annie

Twitterers and fans of our lost high street shops - have a look at #lost70s, it's like being a kid again.

SBW

<P>since i moved to the area not that long ago, sgr has seen the addition of: an excellent pub in the form of a refurbed and family friendly stapleton, a green grocer, a flash (though controversial) french coffee shop, a not so flash but better amsshterdam coffee house and a sainsbury's. i have also seen the opening of a postcode defining restuarant, a shop selling superior second hand childrens clothing that wouldn't look out of place on northcote road or church st and a swanky clothes shop with a sister outlet on church st. an italian cafe serving decent pasta has opened in a previosuly disused unit and a fish and chip shop (worrying also selling chicken) is about to open. last week according to the local paper sir ian mckellen swung by to support a new theatre opening next year </P> <P>to counterbalance that i should add that a money shop has opened and an ice cream parlour has closed and topic records remains closed (anyone remember what it was like?). the noble continues to go downhill, of course. </P> <P>overall though sgr seems to be in pretty rude health</P> <P>    </P>

ashman

hi guys, ive said it for years and hve actually decided if nobody opens up a quality kebab,then i will open one myself. im sure everyone knows the beautiful kebabs sold in stoke newington and green lanes. stroud green is dissapointing after a night at the pub. the black guy tht owned the hardware shop is still on stroud green, right across black sea kebab. he is really helpful still. whats this new turkish place people are talking about?

gardener-joe

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SBW

often wondered how we can be so close to green lanes and be a kebab desert

Ali

<P>I don't think Topic Records was ever "open"  as it is a record label</P> <P><A href="http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/">http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/</A></P>;

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graeme

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/9XPrb.jpg"> easy to miss, it's camouflaged to blend in with the wig shops.

SBW

<P>Thanks Ali - I always assumed it was a closed down high fidelity style record store. 70 years old it says on its website and still going strong, sort of. I might buy "The Second Album", described as "Dave Swarbrick’s increased contribution on this 1966 album was a signal that he and Carthy were rapidly forming folk music’s most potent collaboration, creating a clean, sharp sound that would be honed over the next three albums"</P>

SBW

<P><STRONG>"Influential DJ and presenter Andy Kershaw, describes Topic as being simply “the most important record label in Britain”. I wonder if Pak's are aware of the company they are keeping.</STRONG></P>

Arkady

Ramblin' Jack Elliott recorded records there in the 60s before returning to New York.  It was central to the London folk revival.<br>

kreuzkav

I think the vacant Topic records shop has a certain aesthetic quality.  I'm with the architect philospher Rem Koolhaas on the need for districts to have a certain degree of neglect and wasteland.  Well, as long as they don't get like Detroit.

Arkady

It would take miles of surrounding neglected wasteland to make Koolhaas' squat, ugly crap look even half-decent.  Most of his buildings look like a transformer took a shit.<br><br><br>

kreuzkav

I don't like koolhaas' architecture but I I like a bit of wasteland/empty 'brown space' space in a city.

ChangN4N6

where is the new fish and chip shop? Tollingtons seems to be closed now.

miss annie

It's open, they are always closed for part of January but they opened again this week.

gardener-joe

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ChangN4N6

There were two hardware shops run by elderly Jamacians. The original was opp Sugar Lounge and he was very nice and ran an amazing shop packed with stuff. That went over a year ago. Very sad. The other was opp Nandos. Modern, grown up with much less polite owner but good stock. This is the one that has moved to a site near the older now closed establishment opp Sugar Lounge. Seems to be less stuff in there than before but the owner is nowite friendly. We get all our anti stink stuff there to keep the Lorne Road pong manageable . Chang

Mirandola

I've always found the man who's moved his hardware store to roughly opposite Sugar Lounge very polite and helpful.