City North scheme - wow!

Ali

Any one notice in page 3 of the Observer Business News it announced that Finsbury Park is to get Travel Lodge – must be part of Centre North

Colette

A cinema would be excellent, but I'm with Liz on the Whole Foods idea. If we're going to have posh food shops, I'd vote for a Waitrose.

poxy

ShaunG's map extends too far to the west with a frontage onto Fonthill Road. I'm glad to see the City North proposals won't be affecting the numerous outlets of garish wedding dresses of Fonthill Road.

Bridget

I think the Travel Lodge was going to be on Fonthill Road, there was something in the Islington Gazette about it last year.

3* , my heart sank.

Very funny about the garish wedding dresses.

poxy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/jun/22/hotels

http://www.travelodge.co.uk/press_releases/press_release.php?id=313

dominic

<a href="http://bridgetfox.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/wait-a-minute-waitrose/">Waitrose have chosen Angel, apparently</a>

By the way, is Alex S a stooge for the architects? Free public consultation?

katiejane

Their Pieminister pies were two for a fiver when I went. You don't get offers like that in Melbury and Appleton.

andy

Good thinking Dom. If I had to guess, after a bit of a google, I'd say he was Alex Smith of Building Magazine, who often writes about Islington developments: <http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3093046>; <http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=3076777>; May be looking to write a lazy story on the development that finishes with *"Local residents made their views known on the Internet. "I want a Whole Foods and Starburger" said one, whilst another questioned the use of the word "orthoganal" dismissing the phrase as "bullshit". After that, they started wittering about Pieminsters and local entertainment complex X-It* Care to log back in and deny this Alex?

Bridget

How sad about Woolworths, I used to go there a lot when I lived there. I have been reading about their problems and they have just sacked their chairman. They dont own any of their sites, they are all rented. Im not sure how much longer they can survive, boo hooooo.

Why does N1 get all the good supermarkets while we get shitty Tescos.

Come on share em out!

Ian

As far as I am concerned Woolworths is a department store. I have always thought that and a Greggs should be the modern designation of city status.

Mike from London

@Bridget: >>>>>Why does N1 get all the good supermarkets while we get shitty Tescos.

Because Waitrose and Marks and Spencer do their market research and there are not enough people with enough money around Stroud Green Road to justify opening one. Go figure!

katiejane

But they've got one at Nags Head! That's more downmarket than SGR.

@ andy - have you ever had a Pieminister pie?

Why is everyone down on Tescos? Actually, don't answer that.

Mike from London

All the shops at Nags Head are at a highly visible main road junction with lots of passing traffic, bus routes and that. Probably the big stores like Waitrose and Boots being together boosts trade, not the other way round. Accident of history. And there are loads of million quid houses just down the road in Tufnell Park and Kentish Town. I would guess it's all a numbers game. Stroud Green Road on the other hand is a little island of........(apply your own description).

I agree it would be great to have a Waitrose and M&S in Seven Sisters Road but where's the parking? All you see is people going to Lidl and heaving carrier bags full of cheap sugar for miles up the pavement.

I use Tesco, but I don't like the name, dislike the stripey corporate branding and hate the colour blue. Any more reasons?

andy

I did have a Pieminster pie at the cricket. It was very good.

Colette

@ Katiejane - I know you said don't answer that, but I need a rant. The staff in there are cretinous in the extreme. I lose the will to live in that shop more often than anywhere else on earth, including my office.
Take today - certain vegetables (all next to each other) have big fat yellow "any 3 for 2" stickers on them. So I pick up 3 different packs of different veggies. Of course the offer doesn't scan through at the check out so I argue with the cashier, who claims that they have to be the same vegetable. I try to explain to her the implication of the word "any" in the offer, eventually give up and leave before I end up hurling my shopping all over her till. I can really see why people lose it in there on a regular basis though. Even the manager is an idiot.

Ian

@Colette - the clientèle aren't any cleverer though - none of them seem to be able to count up to ten items ...

Colette

@Ian - very true, and that's why I opted not to stand in the 3 items or "less" customer services queue to shout some more.

Four Eyes

As useless as the staff at Tesco's are, their incompetance can sometimes have it's advantages....Tesco's Kentish Town this lunch time, 'Finest' (in the very loose sense of the word) Paella, reduced from £3.99 to 14p (it should have been the Scotch Egg next to it). Bargain, and it still had 3 days before the sell buy date. Cheapest lunch ever

Ali

Don’t quite understand why everyone complains about Tesco’s so much, at least it is there and you don’t have to go to it if you don’t want to.

It is an easy target but at least it has a decent selection of what most people living round here want, it can be walked past, to, etc no need to jump in car to get your shopping.

Don’t like it that much then put it out of business by going either to Woody’s, Londis or even the new Cost Cutter !

It also employs a lot of local people, provides a cheap source of food for lots of not very rich local people, has some stuff the richer amongst us might want and did at least bring a much needed free cash machine !

Remember Every little helps !

Mike from London

There are in fact two free cash machines in SGR. Little known fact that.

poxy

Go on, I'll bite. I know of three cash machines but only one of which (Tescos) is free, the other two (one in DIY shop next to Cats and one in Woody's) both charge upwards of £1.75 per withdrawal. Where's the second free one?

Ooh, just remembered a fourth machine... in the 'phone booth outside Jai.

Bridget

I think the Post Office has a free one.

Emma

Cor, I just posted to say about the one in the Post Office (only useful if the place is open obv) but I think I must have posted at EXACTLY the same time as Bridget as my comment didn't appear! Spook!

tosscat

The Fullback does cashback, even on credit cards, if you're ever desperate.

Mike from London

Correct, the PO. I always feel smug when I see a long queue outside Tescos's after using it. Obviously only when it's open, natch.

Colette

@Ali - I just don't understand why it can't be properly managed. At least the basics. Staff understand the not exactly complex offers. Staff can count to 3 (items or fewer). It's not hard. And what's with the days when you walk in there and it's like everyone else on SGR knows there is a nuclear holocaust on the way, and at least 50% of the shelves have been stripped of all foodstuffs?

rainbow_carnage

I'm not opposed to Tesco in general, but the one on SGR sucks. It's all ready-meals. Half of the time they don't have any of the vegetables that I need. You know, uber exotic things like peppers and courgettes. The staff are rude and incompetent. The trolley man yelled at us the last time we accidentally pushed the trolley over the sacred white line.

We get weekly deliveries from Tesco. It's much easier, and the selection is better online.

Ali

I guess that is their “Just not in time system” working for you.

It is way better than it used to be not that many years ago. ie closing at 5.29 on the dot every day of the week, not open on a Sunday, a lot smaller although they did have a bigger on site store room so less stock out but a smaller range to choose from than now !

Quiet a few of the staff have worked there for a long time and are very helpful but I guess the issue is all the part timers etc that they have.

I also suspect that the local management doesn’t have much say on really happens on stock out etc as that will be driven logistic supply systems, warehouses and delivery etc.

I am surprised that someone like Sainsbury’s hasn’t bought out Woody’s and turned it into a Local store but I guess that will be because it would find it difficult to compete in price and offer !

tosscat


Mike from London

Did you get permission to take this photograph? Were you not challenged as a possible terrorist?