From air fills to felt
Nineteen years of reef trips, two years of renovation, and a decision to leave the ugly industrial bits exactly where they were.
What we kept and what we skipped
The compressor in the corner has not run since the last owner sold the business, and it is not going anywhere. Neither is the tank rack, the roller door or the hand-painted price list for weight belts.
What went: the retail carpet, the fluorescent battens and a suspended ceiling that hid four metres of tin roof.
The kitchen sits where the ticket desk was, so the smell of the fryer reaches the tables at exactly the wrong moment. Regulars say that is the point.
Five staff
Two cooking, three on the floor.
Forty covers
The eating half, run across two sittings.
Nine tables
The playing half, run across two tides.
Things people ask about the building
Does the compressor still work?
Probably. Nobody has been game to try it.
Why keep the tank rack?
It splits the room better than a wall and it cost nothing.
Was it always a dive shop?
A net loft first, apparently, then charters from the eighties.
Is the roller door ever open?
Every night the wind is coming off the water.
Three promises, plainly put
- A game is a game. No stake, no prize, no tab to settle at the end of it.
- The board follows the boats. If the trawlers had a bad night, the dish comes off.
- Nobody drives home from here without being offered a cab first.