Diary: the ‘Opening and closing’ column

Fitzrovia is a strange and often sad old barrio. I struggle to keep up with the comings and goings. And so do the residents along with the writers at The Fitzrovia News.

One of the most popular columns in our — now pretty much defunct — printed newspaper was “Opening and Closing” written by my colleague Pete Whyatt. It began during 2012 and the last round up of shops and services moving out of and into Fitzrovia was published in December 2019.

By the time the column had, erm, petered out there were considerably fewer useful shops and services left for ordinary residents, with most of the new openings being expensive cafes, restaurants and silly wine bars. Remember we used to have a launderette?

December 2019 was a difficult issue in itself to publish (we put the wrong date on it for a start…). But publish it we did. It was produced from the homes of Mike Pentelow and Pete Whyatt after we had to leave the Neighbourhood Centre at 39 Tottenham Street.

We’d inadvertently become part of the “Opening and Closing” column, though never actually featured in it. That building, by the way, is still empty more than five years after the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association was shabbily pushed out by Camden Council who claimed they had to carry out “immediate” renovations.

Five years’ on and Camden Council has over the past week decided to put a lick of paint on it, and will be shortly painting over the sign that says “Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre”. Apart from that, the building looks like it will fall into the street.

The “Opening and Closing” column was, to the irritation to the now editor Linus Rees, the most popular, regular feature in the paper. People would often say to Rees that they always enjoyed reading it, and often claimed it was the only thing they ever read in the paper — much to his annoyance.

The trouble was — and more so now — the pace of change in the neighbourhood was so fast that Whyatt was struggling to keep up with writing the column, such were the number of premises ceasing trading, and the number of new ones arriving were often not worth writing about. So in the last printed full colour editions of the paper, Fitzrovia’s rag of record failed to catalogue the openings and closings. And we’ve barely attempted to do so ever since.

The first half of this year has seen continued change with a smaller Tesco opening on Goodge Street, and large amounts of commercial and residential property changing hands.

A huge chunk of the Langham Estate in the northern part of Fitzrovia West was sold to Elliott Management and Oval Real Estate “for a figure believed to be in excess of £300 million” according to one news report.

After Shaftesbury plc merged with Capital and Counties to become Shaftesbury Capital last year they decided to sell the freeholds of their entire Fitzrovia estate — a collection of pubs, bars and restaurants mostly clustered around Charlotte Street and Goodge Street.

The “majority of the Fitzrovia portfolio” was sold earlier this year. A large chunk was bought by US private equity group Ares Management for £60.5mn said one report, and the Duke of York pub in Rathbone Street was bought by McMullen and Sons Ltd who also own the Kings Arms on the corner of Great Titchfield Street and Riding House Street.

This spring Derwent London put its Qube building at 90 Whitfield Street on the market.

At ground floor level shopfitters seem to be doing a roaring trade along with commercial estate agents, as new enterprises come and go one after another. The south west corner of Charlotte Street and Tottenham Street is covered with hoarding and will be for some time according to the notice pinned to it.

Many new openings in the neighbourhood don’t stay around for long and close within a year or even six months. Rents are too high and there is only so many coffee shops, restaurants and wine bars that the neighbourhood can sustain.

But to close after six weeks is very unusual.

All’onda restaurant in Charlotte Street opened in May but shut in June only two days after Jay Rayner of the Guardian had had a “delicious” and “eye-poppingly beautiful” meal there. “We regret to inform you that due to unforeseen personal circumstances of the owners, All’onda will be closing down permanently as of Tuesday 18 June,” says a message on their website.

“I wish Granzarolo and his whole team the best for whatever they do next,” said Rayner. As do we at The Fitzrovia News.