Part 60 Swords Of A Thousand Men

A Samurai sword, Jim's Pizzeria and a psychic

Thanks for staying with us for so long. Please feel free to comment, or heckle at the end. Oh yea, and stick a little Like on it. Cheers.

Welcome back people. OK, that was the Intro, right there.

Right, back to it. We had put in an offer on a restaurant site in London, and it had been accepted by the landlord, but it was an odd situation. Why?

A basic explanation about commercial landlords.

Normally, if a shop, or restaurant has stopped trading, and is empty, then the landlord will ask the new tenant for a bond, which you are given back when you leave, if you haven’t done anything wrong, that could be three or six months rent up front. They will also ask for some references to make sure you’re not a donkey. You agree a rent amount with them and a rental term, which could be five, ten, fifteen or twenty years. Or it could be longer. Most commercial rents are paid every quarter, and generally on the same date. Then you start the legal process. Then you open and trade, and make millions of pounds. That’s the simplified version.

Now, some nice commercial landlords will give you a three months, or sometimes a six month, rent free period. This is because they want you to get a good head start in your business, it’s better for them if you do well, instead of having to go through new tenants every six months. Some commercial landlords give you no rent free period. Ours didn’t.

So, taking an empty unit is good because you’re not paying for a going concern. Paying Jim from Jim’s Pizzeria for the tables and chairs, and all the other tat you didn't want wasn’t attractive to us.

However, and this odd part, and this seems to be a more common practice these days, some landlords get a bit cheeky, or greedy. And in our case, that’s what happened.

Our landlord, who was, and probably still is, very large and very powerful, had a stipulation. They wanted an extra wadge of cash because the restaurant was fairly well fitted out. They hadn't fitted it out, the previous tenant had. But no matter, they wanted some money.

Now, from memory it was about eighteen grand, which may seem like a lot, but it was way cheaper than paying a hundred grand to Jim for his pizza oven and pepper grinders.

So we went with it.

Solicitors were instructed and we started the whole process again, the same one we had gone through in York just four years earlier.

A random pic to brighten the page up. Pic by us from when did some consultancy work..

And while this dull process was going on, we did some research on the site we had chosen. From what we could make out, and remember that the internet was only half full back then, the building had been a printers at one time. In fact, many of the buildings in the area had something to do with printing in the past. And why? Because in the past, Fleet Street, which was vey close by, had been the home of many of the major newspapers. So lot’s of associated industries sprung up in the cheaper surrounding properties.

Then, someone with lots of money, took two buildings and joined them together. At one time it had been a solicitors office. But later, the basement and first floor were turned over to a restaurant site and the upper floors were converted into flats.

And the first operator to take this property and kit out the restaurant section named it Took’s Bar and Diner, probably in the late nineties.

That did well because people like alcohol, and the local office workers would pop in for a wee drink after work. This was a common occurrence in London, probably still is. In the north, you finish work, get in your car, drive home and have your tea.

In London, you make the excuse that if you get on the Tube at peak time, when everyone else is leaving work, it’s rammed and unpleasant. So instead, you pop into an eating establishment, have a bite to eat, then you have a drink or two, then get onto the Tube at midnight.

Anyway, Took’s Bar and Diner closed down and rumour had it that a chef who had worked for Gordon Ramrod, took the site on. But it didn't last long, maybe because he wasn’t Gordon Ramrod.

And the next restaurant to be in that spot, was Shimo. This was a Japanese restaurant which did Italian desserts. Yea, read that again. This only lasted for about a year.

If you think we deserve a three quid coffee for blurting all of this out, that’s the button.

And when we started to absorb this information, we became a little worried. Had we made a bad choice? It seemed that restaurants didn’t last too long in this location. The words ‘Cursed Site’ were mentioned online a few times. Had we been landed with the curse?

But it didn't make sense, Took’s Court was quaint, it gets a mention in one of the novels by that bloke, Charles Dickens*. And it felt like London, big old Victorian London. Chancery Lane tube station was a five minute walk away, therefore the site was easy to find. You could walk to Covent Garden in fifteen minutes, in our minds it was perfect. And, as we had learned from our York location, if you’re doing something different, it doesn’t matter too much where you are, people will find you.

But Shimo was different. It was Japanese Italian fusion, why didn’t that work?

No, we were just worrying for no reason, we would be OK.

Look hoe narrow Took’s Court is, one car only, and it’s a dead end. Pic form wiki something.

Also, and you will definitely get a bit giddy about this next story, we found images online which showed the interior of Shimo. We saw the Japanese style basement area which we had walked through, we could see the Japanese screens at reception, and, there was a picture of a Samurai warrior’s full suit of armour, which was on display in the dining area. Complete with a sword.

A Samurai Warrior’s suit of armour, and a sword, it was beautiful, a full, life size replica. Or maybe it was the real thing. We hadn’t seen it when we viewed the premises, but hopefully it was stored in a cupboard somewhere.

“Hey Donna, I could wear it. I could walk around London looking like a Samurai warrior. I’ll never get mugged.”

“No. You’re not wearing the suit of a Samurai. Hopefully it’s not there anymore.”

So we had satisfied ourselves that the site was OK, people would find us, and we would trade very well. And I was going to be a Samurai warrior.

The next task, which again, we had done before, was to start looking for crockery, cutlery glasses and all the other things which cost a small fortune but are utterly necessary to run a restaurant.

Now, because we were from the North East of England, we believed that the people of London were different to us. These people were used to eating from 18ct gold plates. Their Champagne was sipped from crystal goblets, and napkins were woven from the hair of angels.

But we couldn’t afford any of that, so we would need to search hard for similar replacements. So we cracked on.

And we had time to look for these sacred trinkets because we weren’t working seventeen hours a day in the restaurant anymore. And although this was massively alien to us, and financially difficult, it was actually quite nice. We hadn’t had that for a few years, it felt like a huge treat to sit and watch telly on a Saturday night. We could get in the car and drive to places, during the day. We could also visit family and friends, just as the civilians did. It was glorious.

But something odd happened on our visits. And Donna and I aren’t sure if we should add this bit into the Substack, but we have. Most people were happy for us. However, for some reason, a small amount of people seemed a bit pissed off at our decision to relocate to London.

“What do you want to move there for, it’s a dump.”

“London? It’s filthy, why do you want to live there?”

“It’ll cost a fortune, why didn’t you just keep the York restaurant?”

“Where will you live? Do you realise how much property costs down there?”

And it was the tone which was attached to these remarks which surprised us. There was a bitterness, a prickly attitude, as if they were annoyed that we were moving to London.

“It’s not actually you who is moving to that filthy, expensive dump, so why are you so bothered? Why are you so annoyed?”

“Well……”

There was never a solid answer, just the same words but assembled differently.

“Well, it’s a dump isn’t it? It’s just too expensive.”

Were people upset that we were leaving?

Were they worried that we would find it difficult?

Did they want us to take them with us?

Or were they envious? Deep down, did they want, or need a new adventure?

Did our moving forwards, highlight their standing still?

Where was that underlying annoyance rooted?

If we said that we were relocating to Middlesbrough, would that decision temper their annoyance?

‘Stay where you are, success is only for successful people.’

But who knows, maybe we were just reading far too much into it.

Or maybe it was due to their hatred of London.

This next one came to us anonymously, via email, in the days when we only received one email a week. After digesting it for a few minutes we took it as a compliment. And from memory it read something like this.

“I hear that you’ve closed your restaurant and are relocating to that shit hole at the end of the A1. Well I sincerely hope that you fail and come back and re open in York”

And one last one from the late great psychic, Jonathan Cainer, again, via email, and this is only from a hazy memory.

“It has come to my attention that you have closed your restaurant. I can’t help but think that it is due to financial reasons. Maybe I can help?”

No, we’re ok thanks Jonathan.

Thank you lovely people for reading this.

Catch you next week, Andrew and Donna

*Charlie Dickens renamed Took’s Court, Cooks’s Court for his novel, Bleak House, and the character Mr. Snagsby lived at number 15. Some say that Mr. D also lived at the house in Took’s Court while he was working as a parliamentary reporter and it was then that he created the character, Ebenezer Scrooge, based on his neighbour.