If Angus Steakhouse goes tourists will be let loose
If reports are true, one of London’s most famed sights is soon to disappear. The ‘is-it-a-strip-club, is-it-a-restaurant?’ red lights of Angus Steakhouses may soon fade to black as the chain wrestles with administration. KPMG has been hired, presumably to beg landlords to get in touch with their inner human.
I was shocked by how few of these places remain. I guessed maybe a dozen sat on Zone 1 street corners, still lasciviously calling to no-clue newcomers. Not so. Only five are left, by Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Bond Street and Paddington.
Long after their apparently fashionable heyday of the Seventies and Eighties — when, credit where it’s due, they helped democratise dining, offering a middle ground between greasy spoons and Pall Mall gentleman’s clubs — they still did big business. But troubles in 2003 saw 21 sites cut to eight, and from there, three have disappeared to that great grill in the sky. In 2017, they turned £1.7million profit. In 2018, £373,000. No word since then, but you don’t call KPMG to brag.
Their loss is London’s — or, at least, Londoners’. Tourists react to red the same way bulls do. Build it (red) and they will come. The buses, the phone booths. Beefeaters. The M&M store. And the Angus restaurants: red signs, red banquettes, bloody red rib-eyes. Lost and hungry in Leicester Square? Shopped out on Oxford Street? The steakhouses were always there, like neon-lit mirages.
And it left grumpy Londoners free to moan, unbothered in the comfort of our old favourites. This city thrives off its tourists and boy do we desperately need them, but who doesn’t like to grumble about slow-walking, selfie snapping types from time to time? It’s why Leicester Square brings locals out in a rash. Sweeping up the tourists was a kind of national service the steakhouse offered; while they sat there wide-eyed and bewildered, it left us to the boltholes.
Besides, wondering aloud how they survived is a kind of pastime here. Funny, but I'll miss them. No, I never went there either.
