Wacked

Well that didn't last long, did it? A year ago I posted about it opening and now it's gone. Too wacky even for east Hull.

The Sign of the Dancing Goat

This oddly named coffee house is on Beverley Road between Dinos pizza and burger place( "a Healthier alternative" yeah right) and the Newland Christian Centre (doubtless a holier alternative). It is an excellent establishment, so I've read, but as you know I don't touch coffee.

One flew over the Crow's Nest

Outside this Italian restaurant on Newland Avenue was parked the smallest delivery van I've ever seen. This place was a year or so ago called La Perla, new name, new decor and it's getting good reviews. I've seen the menu and like all these places it's far from cheap for what is essentially pasta with some sauce on top. Thirty years ago this was a greasy spoon of a place by the name of the Crow's Nest (if I remember me rightly) it specialised in bacon butties and tea served in a pint mug! Autres temps, autres goûts! 

Excellent Cafe

This is the Excellent Cafe on Holderness Road. If your nearest competitor is a branch of that ubiquitous purveyor of burnt cow meat called McDonald then there is, I suppose, little point in being modest. Despite its name the local council rates this place as only average for hygiene and so on; and I'm afraid images of the fare on offer are not quite to my taste. I think I'll give it a miss.

The weekend in black and white is here.

The return of Sainsbury's

This corner building on Jameson Street was once a post office with BBC Radio Humberside occupying the upper floors. Well the post office moved into W H Smith's and the BBC built itself a little palace and this building has been mainly empty for ages. Now Sainsbury's have recognized the error of moving out of their town centre store and are opening a new place here and as an added bonus there's to be a Secret Garden Café on top. Well not so secret now ...

Let's have a butchers ...

Here is Princes Avenue's sole remaining butcher's shop, T L Norman. Now it's been called T L Norman for longer than I've lived in Hull but Mr Norman retired a while ago and it's now run by some body else. Looking for something to say about this I found that there used to be six butchers on the avenue, I can only remember two others. They are now either a café or a bar along with just about every other shop that used to trade in this street.

This miserable year appears to have run out of days ... more of the same tomorrow then! Oh and remember; “Better the butcher than the meat.”. 

On the level

A restaurant on Newland Avenue was undergoing a makeover last week.  Formerly known as Piola, a busy Italian restaurant, it seems it is be called Level a name which gives nothing away.

Get stuck in!

At the end of a busy day the working man deserves nothing less than a hearty meal and an ice cold pint of the amber nectar. He might also like a little privacy and not have some prying person point a camera at him from a passing bus but, hey, you can't have everything.

The months just fly by these days and here's another one starting up which can only mean one thing: theme day at City Daily Photo where for want of anything better 'zest' was plucked out of the dictionary and flung down as a challenge. See who has been bold (or stupid) enough to take it up here.

Buffet car

So what do you do with two old rail carriages and an archway on Beverley Road? Obviously you turn them into a cafe bar, what else?

Was it Bill or was it Ben?

Readers who do not understand the title of today's post might like to Google 'Flower Pot Men' though on the whole I wouldn't recommend it (see below). This potty character adorns a café on Chanterlands Avenue.

OK for those of you who like to suffer or simply regress back to a long lost childhood here's a whole episode of the Flower Pot Men. I used to watch this during my formative years; it may explain a lot! Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin ....

Remains to be seen

There are still some brave people in Hull, people with real vision. They can see that what is needed on this site between the war memorial and the busy dual carriageway that is Ferensway is an outdoor eating experience. Yes, the place will be a "landscaped outdoor seating area for new café bars and restaurants that it is hoped will emerge from the refurbishment of old shop units". First up a new brasserie ...Well good luck to all concerned. On a cold damp day at the end of November I had difficulty seeing the attraction but then I've always a problem with the vision thing.

Glamrock meets Robinson Crusoe: no contest.

This run down, somewhat seedy establishment is a memorial to Mick Ronson. Who? He was the guy who played guitar with David Bowie in the glittery glamrock end of '70s. There used to be a kind of awning over a small stage but that appears to gone the way of all council cutbacks. Now it's just a cafe in Queen's Gardens with a tacky sign. 

In contrast to the ephemeral, pop music world, you may just make out a plaque on the wall. This is a celebration of Robinson Crusoe's departure from Hull in 1651. Not from that spot, you understand, since that wasn't a dock then, and nor yet for real since he was only  a figure in a book. The plaque states "he spent 28 years, 2 months and 19 days on a desert island an example of resolution, fortitude and self-reliance"

It goes onto to quote "Had I the sense to return to Hull, I had been happy"; well quite, but there'd been no story then, would there?