Gossip on Portobello road. Pizza East and The Tabernacle.

It is a shame when yet another local pub closes down to be reincarnated as a trendy 'destination'. this has happened recently to the Fat Badger which once occupied the corner of Portobello and Goldbourne. It is now called Pizza East Portobello.

I had heard that the place was heaving the minute it opened. It is, but not necessarily for normal reasons. Pizza East is part of the Soho House chain. The Electric in Portobello Road is also part of this chain. when Pizza East opened the Electric closed for major refurbishment and memberships were transferred to Pizza East up the road.

We can safely assume that the majority of people using the new gaff at the moment will transfer their attention back to the Electric when it re-opens. I'll review Pizza East then.

The TABERNACLE in Powis square is holding a public meeting on Tuesday evening at 7.00 pm. The meeting is intended to set out to the local community the plans and aims for the Tabernacle in the years ahead.

There is a flyer going around demanding that the place be reclaimed for the community and calling for the meeting to be used as a rally. The flyer is anonymous. who is behind it? Is this another case of a small part of the community taking it upon itself to 'speak' for the community as a whole. I shall be interested to see if the 'Reclaim the Tabernacle' group is a fair representation of the Spanish, Portuguese, Somalian, Irish, Sri Lankan  etc etc members of the community. I have a feeling it will not be.

I'll report back on the meeting with an update.