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la Boheme cafe

  • Thread starter Thread starter Frantic
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Frantic

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Does anyone remember the 'La Boheme' coffe bar? I can't remember the name of the road but it was at the back of Central Fire Station. I worked there on Monday & Saturday nights to suplement my meagre income. (I also used to get to chat up the chicks) This was in 1965-67.
 
La Boheme

Hi Frantic.....Did Andre Drucker own La Boheme at the time you worked there? My Mom worked at Bloxham's Travel Agents in the Central Fire Station on Lancaster Street in the late l950's and she used to go over
there for coffee or lunch. In those days Andre Drucker, founder of Drucker's Vienna Patisserie was the owner. He was a recent immigrant to Britain back then and opened this most unusual cafe. He created a great atmosphere in La Boheme, serving good coffee having some interesting art magazines available, great jazz style music and by helping budding artists by hanging their work on the walls of the cafe on a consignment basis.

Eventually, a small coffee shop was opened up in the Burlington Arcade and then a shop in Erdington High Street. When my Mother died I went to the Erdington shop and ordered a huge cheesecake for her funeral tea. Went down well with her friends and neighbours. She was always impressed by Andre Drucker and introduced me to the wonderful cakes they serve. I always have at least one visit to Druckers in Sutton,Walsall,Town Kenilworth....oh my heavens....any of them.
 
La Boheme

Hi Jennyann, It certainly was Andre Drucker who owned La Boheme and his Apfel strudel & fresh whipped cream was to die for. You are right about the atmosphere in there, on Saturday nights it used to be PACKED. We used to fight through the crowd to collect cups & saucers 'cause we kept running out!
It was very civilised though, and never any trouble. If any 'Rockers or Mods' came in, they felt out of place and left. Sometimes, early in the evening when it was quiet, I used to play my guitar (Dylan, Joan Baez, etc) and the manager suggested starting a folk club upstairs, so we painted everything black & red, put in dim lights & candles and we were off! It was very succesful and popular with the students from Aston Uni. I also met my 'First Love' there..........but that's another story. (especially since the 'current love' is hovering around 8) )
 
Thanks for that Frantic. Did you get any samples of that apple strudel and cream? Bet you didn't have much time for eating with all those customers...correction... you must have had time to chat up the birds...hence meeting your first love in the cafe

Since it is called Vienna Pattiserie, it was probably Vienna where Andre Drucker originally came from. The name La Boheme is still used by
Druckers. The actual company name is La Boheme Ltd and they trade
as Drucker's Vienna Pattiserie.....fascinating.

There is a big pub across from the Central Fire Station on Aston Road. It's all boarded up now and it looks very sad. Years ago they used to play jazz
in the upstairs rooms some nights. Some of jazz enthusiasts used to
patronise La Boheme after the sessions, my brother Peter being one of them.

Drucker's is such a success story these days operating in malls alongside
Starbucks and Costa as well as other high profile locations up and down the country and holding their own very well. The business is now run by Andre's son Stephen. I remember reading on the internet that Stephen had bought a very unusual house in Kenilworth with a tall tower and lower outbuildings. It is basically an inland lighthouse. I have seen a photo of it only. Not sure if he still lives there. Tourist buses go by it because it is so unusual. It was built for a retired sea captain I believe many years ago.

Andre was a novelist, playwright and a painter. Years ago I found an article about him right here in Coquitlam where I live... a tattered New York magazine in the doctor's waiting room. I was amazed to be sure.
:lol:
 
:D I also went to the La Boheme, in fact it was Alberta's sister in Law Valerie who first took me there around 1963/4. If I remember right it had a red fluorescent sign and was not far from the Mail & Dispatch offices at the bottom end of Corporation St .

Chris :)
 
... and the dynasty continues: My grandaughter went for an interview for a part-time job at Druckers only this week. She's still waiting to hear if she's got the job. :D
 
Jenny Ann, the pub you referred to is the Ben Johnson, corner of Staniforth Street and Aston road, I read only in the last couple of weeks that it is to undergo major refurbishment before re-opening.

I have a vague recollection of La Boheme after the above postings, was it near to Thomas Wolfe furniture store? If so, I did go there.
 
Not the Kardomah

Seeing the lively correspondence on La Boheme got me thinking. Next morning I looked in my 1959 diary which confirms I went there on the evening of Good Friday, 27 March. I had left Birmingham 3 weeks earlier, and this was my first return home for the Bank Holiday. As vwas my way in those days, I went to an evening service at St Michael's Handsworth, met up with a nice girl I knew fairly well, and she moreorless took me to the LA BOHEME, which she recommended. I also remember that when I took her home afterwards she found she had no key, and I had to do the gentlemanly thing and climb through the little top kitchen window to let her in. It was all very chivalrous, no advantage taken and no regrets. I never got to the LA BOHEME again, more's the pity - it sounds a very nice place, at a time when there was not much on offer in Brum. Nor did I ever see the young lady again, asd it happens!
Looking through my diaries from the late 1950s I see various additions to the usual run of Joe Lyons, Kardomah, and the British Restaurants. The first was the BARBECUE coffee bar which opened in 1954 in Cornwall Street opposite the back entrance to the School of Art where I was studying. The 1956 Kelly's Directory shows a complete blank for that site, so it must have been redeveloped by then.
Another coffee bar I used in 1958 - 59 was the LOCARNO, which I think was at the top of Summer Hill. Yet another which I went to in late 1959 after I had emigrated to London was the FIESTA - I have no idea where that was now.
Can anyone else advise?
Peter
 
Peter,
I never went, but I remember my older sister being frowned on by my parents for frequenting the Locarno because it was a known hang out for beatniks :shock: ... My word, what was the world coming too? :roll:
 
Does anyone remember this cafe / bar somewhere down by the fire station in the 1960's better still does anyone have a photo i wonder ?
 
Remember it well, Aston Street, opened and owned by Andre Drucker we did the sign, also his 2nd cafe in Carrs Lane called the Firebird.
 
Except,Lyn, I don't think we do have them now, as they were taken over by Patisserie Valerie, and , as I understand it, all were closed when that firm had its recent problems. Please , anyone correct me if I am wrong
 
I found one, the only one which will go in my book, also a pic of the folies barmaid by Manet, that was behind the bar in there and a pic of Andre Drucker himself in the Bar in La Boheme. You can just see the folies barmaid behind him, so i am well pleased and now you can see it too......cheers John.......ooops sorry the folies barmaid pic is too large.La Boheme frontage.jpgAndre Drucker.jpg
 
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