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Afro-caribbean Shops, Restaurants And Clubs - Old And New

B

BF206

New Member
Hi there all! Londoner here! Im doing some research on Afro-caribbean restaurants, butchers, bars, clubs etc. and i wondered with the great combined knowledge of Birmingham here if people knew perhaps Some of the older establishments (Ones still in business and also those no longer in existence)... I know of First National Bakery in West from (hugely popular in london) and Davis Bakery

Also if you knew good modern/new ones that would be great as I'm going to visit soon!

Thank you!

(sorry if this is the wrong section, I've never seen so many sub sections!)
 
Welcome BF. Hopefully members can give you some pointers. Meanwhile, I think Rustie Lee used to have a restaurant in Handsworth (maybe Soho Road/Hill?). She was definitely a chef. Maybe someone can confirm. Never went there myself. Viv.
 
Just found this biog of Rustie. She did have a restaurant (called Rusties) on Soho Rd, Handsworth. Interestingly her parents had a bakery where she worked, but unfortunately no details are given. Viv.

https://rustielee.co.uk/
 
hi BF..if this is any good to you i have this photo showing rusty lees restaurant on soho hill...it was next to the beehive pub...the buiilding is still there but in a very sorry state now

lyn
 

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Vivienne14 said:
Just found this biog of Rustie. She did have a restaurant (called Rusties) on Soho Rd, Handsworth. Interestingly her parents had a bakery where she worked, but unfortunately no details are given. Viv.

https://rustielee.co.uk/
Click to expand...

Hi there, I have come across Rustie lee. I will email her from the contact on the site!

Also this photo (link below) quotes - "One of the cooks is called Terry. This was one of the first Caribbean restaurants in Handsworth. It was near the corner of Soho Road and Holliday Road" Any idea what that was?

https://tinyurl.com/zb5npcv
 
BF..i have posted you a photo of rusty lees restaurant on post 4....have you missed it

lyn
 
Hi viv,
If my memory serves me correctly the restaurant was on Soho hill more or less across the opersite side of the road
To the pub but area yards down it was also area yards down from a night club which I just cannot recall the name at the moment
It was a huge white house which years later turned into the night club I used to go there myself
And I know about ten years ago on here I wrote a thread about it on this forum
At this precise time I am racking like mad to myself the name of the club perhaps one of our old members may recall it
But anyway the picture next to the pub which Lynn as said its a restaurant but in fact it was a take away shop
For west Indian hot foods which was in very high demands late at night and early hours of the morning
For people to buy food to eat to take home or eat as you walk which was often the case
Get your fried dumplings or a validity of good west Indian foods
She opens d her posh looking and very high cleansed restaurant with a blind above the restaurants front windows
On the Soho hill as I said the premises next to the pub was a take away and the little adjoining property
Was in fact called sunrise bakerys a little bakery making pies and etc
From there she went on to open another little one down on Hurst street about 200 yards from the old
Birmingham thwarted I think it may have been a little further down passing what was a corner coffee shop called the mission
 
Hi viv , just like to mention the first continentle night club and restaurant was infact
Called the continentele club which you would walk down the front steps to get in and it would have cost you one of those big old fashionioned five pound notes to get into the club it was one of those big huge Victorian houses on Soho road
We spent many hours in there after doing our pub crawl from Shockley to west brom star and garter pub and end up at the conti
Until six o'clock in the morning sipping a bottle of barley wine to get sober and trot down to Avery scales foundry lane to start work
This was when I was a young an and single days of growing up best wishes Alan,,Astonian,,
 
Astoness said:
hi BF..if this is any good to you i have this photo showing rusty lees restaurant on soho hill...it was next to the beehive pub...the buiilding is still there but in a very sorry state now

lyn
Click to expand...

I did miss it! Thats great. Google seems to draw a blank on a direct picture of Rusties.

Great stories Astonian
 
Sometime in the 80s I used to go to the Acafess on Friday nights to listen to the Jazz band. I can't remember what most of the name stood for but it began Afro-Caribbean. The place was on the Moseley Road in Highgate. The gigs used to go on pretty late and with the same house band (Steve Ajao on Friday, Andy Hamilton on Saturday). The smoke in the bar used to get so bad my eyes hurt by midnight. There weren't many white people in the place so I wound up sitting with the wives of a couple of the band members a lot of the time.
The place seems to have become something else before it shut down. I don't have much by way of pictures here and the only one we've put out so far is here. https://www.search.birminghamimages...=10217&PageIndex=1&KeyWord=prince&SortOrder=2
 
Thanks so much guys. I was reading about "Davis bakery" on Soho Road which claims to be active since 1954. Does anybody have any recollection of this?

Thanks!
 
There was a West Indian take-away which I think was called Gee's on the Soho Hill end of Soho Road in the 70's, they stayed open very late (or even all night) and sometimes we used to get jerk pork and dumplings from there after we had been clubing in town on Saturday nights.
 
I can remember a few clubs from late 70s/early 80s
1 Tabasco Aston which was on the corner of Witton lane and Holt rd three converted houses right opp the holt pub this burt down and demolished thay built a new club on the corner of Church rd and Bourne rd which did not last long just not the same atmosfear
2 Thashers soho road just buy Villa rd knock down to make way for sikh temple
3 right opp on soho rd was the monty fan tastic night out if your face fitted
most of the night life back then was at an illegel bluse house/s quite a few of them about or in church/comunity halls where thay use to have 2 sound system's compeating agenst each other a very close friend of mine (legs) use to build the valve amps for them i went with him one night to the church hall at the top of Villa rd the one side off the room had about 10/12 18 inch speakers with 3x 1000 watt valve amps it was loude on the other side of room was a sound system called(jungel man )thay had 6 x1000 watt amps and about 20 x 18 inch speakers to this day i have never heard a bass like it it made all the bones in my body rattal
the good old day
 
A Sparks said:
There was a West Indian take-away which I think was called Gee's on the Soho Hill end of Soho Road in the 70's, they stayed open very late (or even all night) and sometimes we used to get jerk pork and dumplings from there after we had been clubing in town on Saturday nights.
Click to expand...
yeah that was opposite Rusties restaurant and the RAF club, my dad owned the toolmakers factory next to Gees
 
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