Street food

One of the three food sheds in Ebbisham Square has gone down, presumably for failure to pay the rent. Would a shed with a drinks license have done better? I remember that huts on beaches in France are allowed to sell bottled beer - and I dare say other stuff too.

Better news from around the corner, where one of the builders working on the TB renovation, which has been running for a couple of weeks now, assured me that they would be done by Christmas Eve. I did not care to push the matter as far as whether a grand reopening was planned for that day.

I now know that the work is being done by Vidette Ltd, a company that clearly specialises in this sort of thing. A company which has a lot of vans on site, suggesting not more than one or two builders to the van, whereas in my day you might get half a dozen or more sitting in the back. Their website suggests that you might spend £200,000 on a refurbishment of this sort, perhaps the profit on 100,000 pints of lager. So quite an investment to recover from an establishment that probably does not sell 2,000 pints a week. But then, I have always wondered about the commercial wisdom of some of these pub refurbishments. Perhaps Vidette have a top class salesman?

Interestingly, the house seems to have vanished from both the worlds of Bing and of Greene King - which last certainly used to be the owners - but with their postcode search only offering 'The Stoneleigh', two train stops up the road.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/new-chairs.html. Notice of refurbishment.

Reference 2: https://vidette.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/. At which website, I am sure the lease of the TB was noticed as being up for sale not so long ago, although I cannot now put my hand on my notice of same.