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Does anyone remember waiting outside Lyons tea house and Griffins and Spaldings on saturday evenings to find out where the parties were happening after spending the afternoon in the Khardomah

Thats weird, I posted a reply to this yesterday or the day before, and it hasnt appeared........?

Anyway, my reply was more or less, Yes, the restaurant on the 4th floor of Griffins was called The Four Seasons, and I spent many a Saturday afternoon in there over a cup of tea or a bottle of coke.

As for the party thing, dunno why but most of the ones I went to were always in either Sherwood or Arnold for some reason.

And have you noticed, whenever you arranged to meet someone in town, it was always outside Lyons, or near one of the two lions in the Market Square. Possibly because just about all the buses stopped on or near Long Row? (For those that didnt have a scooter or a Mini, I was too young actually, although my "doctored" Dungeon membership card said otherwise!

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As for the party thing, dunno why but most of the ones I went to were always in either Sherwood or Arnold for some reason.

And have you noticed, whenever you arranged to meet someone in town, it was always outside Lyons, or near one of the two lions in the Market Square. Possibly because just about all the buses stopped on or near Long Row?

The number 57 Corporation bus to Arnold used to leave directly from outside Lyons in those days.

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  • 2 months later...

i remembered! it came from the folk nights at the miltons head late sixties, some of the performers would write their own stuff. just you and me and the old kd was one of them. there was a guy down there who played beautiful dreamer on a saw.

mg

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  • 6 years later...

I remember my Auntie used to take us to Lyons now and then as a treat and if we were lucky we would get a knickerbocker glory - the girls were called Nippies I think

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Parmitage, they were called nippies!! And Lyons was connected to Nigel and Nigella Lawson.In Dublin they have a Bewleys cornerhouse.. even though the chain has gone,someone has maintained the old atmosphere.. it is great!! In Nottm above Boots on Pelham st.There was a beautiful Boots cafe/tearoom,managed to 'acquire' a load of Boots cutelry and various tableware items in the late 80's.

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Difficult to find a photo of the place. It was here, with a Dolcis on the left of Lyons and Saxone on its right. In the days when buses stopped on both sides of Long Row.

lyons2.jpg

A few years older, but you can see the name behind the bus.

lyons1.jpg

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I think you are right about the buses as I caught the one up to my Auntie's at Woodthorpe from that side of the road - the next time I am in Nottingham I will see if I can find the "new" Lyons

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Stood there many years ago waiting for a bus,dressed in my suit and tie after leaving work...in the Square was a bunch of Mods.

Along came a tit head.....

"Move on!"

"I'm waiting for a bus"

"Move on!"

"I'm waiting for my bus for Gods sake!,,,,this is the terminus" (Pointing at sign on post)

"Move on or I'll arrest you!"

Walked away shaking head and giving pitiful look at the moron in uniform.

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We went in Lyons quite often when I was young. My memory of the inside is that it was a tall, narrow place.

 

To get to the serving counter you went in the entrance, walked through the seating area, towards the rear of the building and up several half-flights of steps. By the time you got to the food you were probably on the first or second floor and almost at the back of the building. Then you had to come back to the front of the place - and down a few steps - to find a place to sit.

 

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Were the walls in Lyons a shiny green? And was there a lot of shiny chrome type fittings? I only went in there once as I remember and that was with my Mum when I was about 10 (1953)

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Going through the door of Lyons you first came to the shop counter, which is where my mother worked for a time in the late 1960s. Then you went up a short flight of steps, and as stated it was a long and narrow area where all the tables and chairs were. You could either walk through the middle of that area, or go along a sort of walkway on the left separated off by a low sort of partition - I assume this was to assist with queuing, as at the end of it was the start of the self-service counter area which continued along the left. You went through that, selecting your food and paying then found a place to sit - which could be anywhere back down the length of the place as far as the initial flight of steps (I don't recall any other steps).

That, at any rate, is how I remember it, going back to the late 1950s - I only remember it as self-service from that time onwards.

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My memories are from the first half of the 60s, and I'm not sure if I remember the shop counter as mentioned by Merthyr Imp. I don't recall the colours inside the building so I can't help MargieH on that one.

However, thanks to Picture the Past I've found a colour photo showing the outside of the place. It's the building immediately in front of the bus.

lyons1_1.jpg

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The shop counter was definitely in place by 1967 as that's when my mother was working there. On a Thursday after going to Arnold & Carlton College on day release I would get a bus into town and go to Lyons for a pie & chips before going in to work in the afternoon.

I don't remember the days of a commissionaire or waitresses as mentioned in earlier postings - only it ever being self-service in my time of visiting it, which was from 1959 onwards. No doubt the era of waitresses had gone by then. My earliest memories of the place - as I say, from 1959, or possibly the year before - were of going there with my mother on occasional shopping trips to Nottingham in the days when we lived in Lincolnshire. I always had a sausage roll and a ring doughnut - I think the sausage rolls were standard Pork Farms ones, which were different to what Curtis's in Lincoln used to do, so they were a novelty - and I used to love the doughnuts!

Can anyone remember when it closed? Must have been some time in the early 1970s.

I can remember Lyons corner houses in London - although, again, they were self-service in my time - and going in one on the corner of Piccadilly. It must have been in the early to mid-1970s when the remaining ones were rebranded as 'Jolyon' restaurants (Joe Lyons - get it?). I remember one on New Street in Birmingham, and the last one I ever remember seeing was opposite Charing Cross station in London. I would think they must have all gone by sometime in the 1980s.

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Lyons was a very large organisation. Due to financial difficulties it was broken up and sold piecemeal to various other companies early to mid seventies.

I never went into Lyons cafe but was a regular at one of it's other brands, Wimpy Bar.

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I can remember Lyons corner houses in London - although, again, they were self-service in my time - and going in one on the corner of Piccadilly.

I remember being on holiday in London in the mid 60s and several times we went to the Lyons near Charing Cross station. One of the items on the menu was "Chicken and Chips" which I thought was really exotic and unusual. Those were the days when you only had chips if they were accompanied by fish; and you only had chicken at christmas and other special occasions. Putting the two together was something which fascinated me and I ate almost nothing but chicken and chips during that week.

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  • 2 years later...

Engaged to Trina'' who worked there in 1964......lovely uniform she wore....remember the day i passed my driving test and running in to show her my paper,,........also recall someone tried to stab me up the Alley at the side ,where they kept their bins, 8am in the morning,, won't go into details but i used a 'Dustbin lid' to sort him out.............lol.,

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Oo ooh Ben, there's nothing worse than being stabbed up the alley !

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