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Last Orders In Paris And London
Drink up in London - if you can find a pub
There was once a lovely pub in Chelsea in London called 'The Australian'. Today it's gone. It was especially cool in the Sixties when rock stars gathered for a pint or two. Or a Scotch and Coke. It was a favourite of the Rolling Stones. Now, as the Economist reports, it is an interior designer's showroom with two apartments above.
All across Britain, pubs are closing. But the pubs in what the newspaper calls "posh London" are under particular pressure. The key candidates for dismissal are in the smart areas of Chelsea, Kensington and St James's. Not long before the Australian rang last orders for the final time, even George Best's old boozer shut its doors. We cannot report if this was due to the demise of its best customer.
In one sense the reason is clear and financial. A good pub, run as a proper business might be worth £1 million. As a charming building with a set of flats, the market price would be around £3 million.
The Earl Cadogan (and family) have been unable in recent years to save a string of historic Chelsea pubs, some dating back to Tudor times.
In the 1950s there were 54 pubs in the old borough of Chelsea. In 1980, there were 44, and by 2005 the total was only 26.
The Duke of Westminster (and Grosvenor family) who own huge chunks of Belgravia and Mayfair have not lost a single pub in five years. It is the policy of Grosvenor Estates to not grant freeholds on commercical properties. The estate is swift to buy leases back if a pub is struggling and to find new operators.
Pubs are important because they are not only places to drink. They are social centres where local people can meet and talk. And when they go, the neighbourhood becomes that much more dull. In a sense, the falling numbers of pubs reflect the changing status of London's smarter neighbourhoods. Once the villagey haunts of the city's upper middle classes and Bohemian set, they have now become home to financial workers, footballers and exiles from overseas. Many don't want noisy pubs with beer gardens on their streets - some pubs have been converted into restaurants to keep up with changing demand.
In some respects, the decline in pub life mirrors the decline in café life in Paris. Over 1,500 corner cafés have disappeared in France over the past fifteen years, many of them in the capital.
The decline in café numbers seems spread throughout the city, with working class areas affected as badly as the richer west of the city: Indeed, one could make a case that the decline in the number of working class citizens in Paris and the increase in numbers of young couples who prefer to hang out in trendy bars and restaurants has hit cafés hardest.
Thousands of traditional zinc cafés (named after the bars) still remain, but a stroll through any residential neighbourhood demonstrates that many are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, with a dwindling clientele of perhaps two or three in some cases.
So, goodbye, and down the hatch.
