Mural Wars

Mural Wars

by | Apr 7, 2024 | Business, Community, Uncategorized

Mural Wars

It has been going on for several weeks now, and it isn’t ending any time soon. The great Chip shop mural battle between an award-winning chip shop owner and the Ashburnham Triangle Conservation association, who enforce code of practice and legislation of the conservation area known as the Ashburnham Triangle. 

The owner of the Golden Chippy, in Greenwich High Road, Mr Chris Kanizi, has commissioned a painted mural advertising his business on the side of his property, and it would appear that a few people in the area have taken umbrage with his mural, and have reported him to the council. Any changes including painting murals on any property within the Ashburnham Triangle conservation area, must have pre-approved planning permission from Greenwich council. 

He should have known this as he previously put up an adverting hoarding against his shop a number of years ago, and was ordered to remove it by the council for the very same reason, 

Because the mural features a fish holding a Union Jack flag next to a bag of chips, with the words ‘A Great British Meal’ it has caused unnecessary racist anger, and stupid reactions from people who love to go through the internet looking for racist clickbait in order to find something to be angry about. 

As soon as a mural with the British flag was ordered to be removed by the council after it had been reported by someone, then the witch hunt for the woke lefty antagonists was on. 

Chris Kanizi the Cypriot owner of the Golden Chippy has vowed to oppose the council order to remove if and he has backing and support from many of his neighbours. 

One or two said it was a tacky eyesore, but most supported him. 

When you consider that while this mural battle was going on in Greenwich another artist who describes himself as a political street graffiti artist going by the name of Banksy, throws green paint over the side of a council owned building, Christie Court in Finsbury Park without the residents of the building knowing about it, and what happens? 

The council there cover the side of the building with plastic sheeting and cover the grass area beneath it with hoardings to protect it. 

What would happen if Banksy defaced the side of a building within the Ashburnham Triangle area. 

Come on Banksy give it a go and let’s see what happens.  

UPDATE: As an update regarding this mural, in late September 2024 the owner of the fish shop, Mr Kanizi applied for planning permission belatedly for the mural, but permission from the council was denied. It looks like the latest mutual will have to come down after all.

Meantime Brewery

Meantime Brewery

by | Mar 16, 2024 | Business, Uncategorized

Meantime Brewery.

At one time the Meantime brewery was poised to be a long lasting Greenwich success story, bringing back long dead and forgotten recipes of beers brewed long ago.

With their Meantime lagers, stouts and my favourite, their Yakima Red ale they were, and still are to some extent an omnipotent present all over London.

The meantime brewery started with small, humble and local routes in a lock up opposite Charlton Athletic football ground in 1999 by a man called Alistair Hook, who studied brewing at the Technical University of Munich.

Eventually production levels facilitated the need to move to bigger premises, so production was relocated to what is now the Old Brewery pub within the Old Naval College grounds.

Eventually even this location was not big enough, so a new brewery was built in 2010 on it’s present location in Blackwall Lane.

In 2015 the Meantime brewery was bought up by the South African multinational brewing company SAB Miller, but apart from a small part of the production being temporarily moved to the Dutch brewery Grolsh to keep up with the demand for their beers. The vast bulk of the production remained at Greenwich.

In 2016 the Belgium brewery giant Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NA or AB InBev for short bought up SAB Miller, but one clause in the purchase contract meant that they had to sell off the Meantime Brewery.

The company that bought Meantime was the Japanese beer giant Asahi Group Holdings. You will often see Asahi beer sold in Fullers pubs as they bought Fullers in January 2019.

Unfortunately Under Asahi is where it all goes wrong. Not for Asahi, but for the borough of Greenwich and us amongst us that like a true rag to riches local success story.

The Meantime Brewery had two pubs and a taproom in Greenwich. There was the Old Brewery, where for a while they brewed their beers, then there was the Greenwich Union in Royal Hill, which was next door to the Richard the first pub, which is a Youngs pub, and finally you had the taproom attached to the Brewery on Blackwall Lane.

The Old Brewery and the Greenwich Union were sold to the Youngs brewery. The Old Brewery still displays the old brewing equipment used in it’s brewing days when Meantime owned it but the equipment is not used for production anymore.

The Greenwich Union Pub was closed and the pubs internal walls knocked down so the old Greenwich Union pub became part of an expanded Richard the First pub.

They still have the taproom in Blackwall Lane but a recent announcement in March 2024 has delivered devastating news and will see the end of Meantime brewing in Greenwich.

Asahi has stated that the Meantime Brewery in Blackwall Lane will be closed and production of all the Meantime beers will be moved to the Fullers Brewery at Chiswick.

So, there you have it a wonderful Greenwich business success story, ruined by multinational corporations who have no understanding and just don’t care about local history or business and the lost to the local community, economy and jobs.

So now the once great Meantime Brewery of Greenwich have now lost their pubs, lost their brewery and now are just a brand name, to be bought and sold and moved to any brewery As long as the brand name keeps selling then the beers will keep being produced and sold, which I suppose is a plus.

Kind of reminds me of another great London brewing entrepreneurial success stories of the 1980’s called the Firkin brewery and pubs chain. Started by a man called David Bruce, the Firkin company  was also swallowed up and destroyed by the beer industry big boys, and now no  longer exists.

Lets just hope that they don’t start tweaking with the recipe or quality of these great beers.

I know that if I was one of these brewers and a multination company waved millions of pounds under my nose, I know I would also buckle under and accept it. Money is money at the end of the day, and we all want it. It’s just a pity it will affect local jobs and take with it a successful local brewery.

New Pubs

New Pubs

by | Mar 2, 2024 | Business, Pub

New Pubs

Back in October I blogged about a new pub that was opening in Powis street Woolwich,  called the Volunteer.  According to the Murky Depths website (  Murky Depths – News and views in London (fromthemurkydepths.co.uk)  permission was given the go ahead for Antic pubs to develop the building way back in 2014 and again in 2017 but they just sat on it and did nothing.

In 2023 new permission was given to develop it again and since then we have been waiting for it to open but still nothing.

Unfortunately, due to an updating mistake and lost data that blog was lost.

Since they had to close one of the better pubs The Woolwich Equitable in General Gordon Place which was owned by Antic pubs but closed due to rent arrears after the pandemic, we have been waiting for a new decent Woolwich pub to open.

Antics have 23 pubs running throughout London and another 4 waiting to finally open, but they have either sold or closed 20 pubs and some of them were pretty good pubs selling real ales.

A pub in waiting. The soon to open Volunteer pub 

If like me, you want to keep updated with the glacial rate at which this place is to open then go to the Volunteers website:  Welcome – The Volunteer (volunteerpub.co.uk)

Another Antic pub due to open soon just up the road in Plumstead is The Plumble which will be housed in 236 Plumstead High Street, next door to what used to be up until 2008 a pub called the Horse and Groom but is now an African church.

Up until 2012 there was another pub next to the other side of the African church called the Electric Orange. So years later we are getting one pub back after loosing two next door to the future pub, The Plumble.

Another new pub being planned for the Greenwich based river front location at the Cutty Sark  in what used to house Byron Burgers and Frankie and Benny’s, and has laid empty for a number of years now.

It will be called The Ship, and is a business venture between the owner of The Trafalgar Tavern, American businessman Frank Dowling who owns a number of restaurants and bars in the Greenwich centre area and a number of other investors.

Given it’s prime location by Greenwich Pier and in the middle of a popular tourist area with great River Thames views it should be a success.

Use them or lose them

Use them or lose them

by | Oct 15, 2023 | Business, Eating Out, Restaurant

Use them or lose them.

Whilst trying to keep the list of restaurants within the borough up to date it struck me how much the restaurants of certain cuisines are suffering and struggling to stay afloat while in a cost-of-living crisis and the back end of the covid crisis.

I have already had a rant about the lack of British and French restaurants with the number of French restaurants now reduced to just one and even that one  I struggle to call a proper French restaurant. Another ethnic cuisine that has struggled are the Caribbean restaurants with now just two within the borough. They have either shut up shop or moved and set up as takeaways,

It’s very sad to see restaurants being replaced by takeaways who seem to be thriving. The borough has a fair size community of Caribbean decent who I am sure would love to experience Caribbean cuisine within a restaurant atmosphere.

You must ask yourself then, if this is the case why did a lot of them just disappear? The only cause I can think of is they weren’t being used. It seems a simple case of ‘use it or lose it’. I’m sure peoples lack of money during the current cost of living crisis and to a lesser extent now, the covid recovery have had a big effect on this situation.

Pub Bar
Where are all the French and British restaurants?

Where are all the French and British restaurants?

by | Sep 18, 2023 | Business, Eating Out, Restaurant

Where are all the French and British restaurants?

What the Royal Borough of Greenwich is in desperate need of are good French and British restaurants. Other surrounding boroughs have a few but we have hardly any considering we are a Royal borough that extols the virtue of British tourism.
We currently have one Café Rouge . which as very soon to be closed down and converted to a Banna Leaf restaurant which is a pan Asian restaurant, after the parent company of Café Rouge got into financial difficulties.

That will leave just the Champagne and Fromage Bistro which although technically a restaurant only really specialises in, you guest it Champagne and Cheese with maybe a few cold meats on the side. Hardly what you would call a proper French restaurant.
Then we have our British restaurants. I have had to delete so many British restaurants this year that I am reduced to scouring the locations of Fish and chip restaurants and Pie and Mash restaurants. These are no doubt worthy of being classed as British restaurants as many of us Brits regularly frequent these establishments, but what we really need are independent steakhouses or proper British restaurants.

Where is all the British grub you may well ask, and I will tell you. It’s in the Pubs of Greenwich.
We have great British food being served in style at places such as The Greenwich Tavern and the Cutty Sark and Enderby House in Greenwich and the Dial Arch and Guard House in Woolwich. In fact almost every pub in the Borough will serve British food of some sort you just have to do trial and error to find the good ones.

The Duke of Greenwich opening day.

The Duke of Greenwich opening day.

by | Jul 13, 2023 | Business, Eating Out, Pub

Duke of Greenwich opening day.

On a lovely sunny evening on Wednesday 12th July we went t the opening of the new pub called The Duke of Greenwich (formerly The Vanbrugh).

I was mistaken in my last blog when I said that I thought the pub had been gutted and was completely different inside. Inside the layout is still the same.

The selection of craft and real ale beers on sale is most impressive although the barman did seem to go into a state of mind confusion when the wife asked for a glass of Pinot Grigio. She settled for a Sauvignon Blanc, which he could handle. I being a CAMRA member wanted to try out the real ales on offer.

Most of the real ales on offer were from the Brew By Numbers brewery which brews excellent beers just down the road by the river.

My wife also tried a Portuguese wine called ‘Chin Chin’ which she said was very nice.

The main food on offer that day was supplied by the large BBQ stage set up in the gardens although I am sure other food was being prepared in the restaurant part but was largely being ignored in favour of the BBQ.

I will eventually get around to writing a review about this place, but it will not be based on the opening day as that would be unfair. Most pubs are different in vibe and ambience once the celebrations are over and a more normal way of life sets in.

Going forward even if they kept the pub as it was on the opening day, I would be OK with that as we enjoyed ourselves. I will also try out their food to see what sort of selection they have but I strongly suspect that they will keep it as a basic pub grub establishment, which is fine as long as the food quality remains good.

The only reason the Vanbrugh closed was the licensee retired and there was no one available to take up the reigns. Let’s hope the Duke of Greenwich is a success. I for one will be popping in occasionally.