There’s a
trendy new bar in Brixton’s arches. You may not exactly need reminding that
it’s a sensitive time for the businesses in the area. The #savebrixtonarches
campaign is in full swing with Network Rail looking to redevelop the area, then
triple the rents it charges retailers. Even Wahaca have been canny enough to
put the campaign poster up in their restaurant window. For the last decade or
so Network Rail has (if you think about the major ones you use regularly) been
on a mission to develop its stations into money-spinning shopping centres with
a few train platforms attached.
All of
which is fine, if you’re adding a Bella Pasta and a second Marks & Spencer
Simply Food to Euston station. It’s arguably somewhat insensitive, however, if
it will contribute to the social cleansing of Brixton. Network Rail has
defended its plans, pledging to ensure that any new businesses that replace
ousted ones will be independently owned. But as has been pointed out, it doesn’t
matter how independent they are, as the process still forces out businesses
that were there to affordably serve the established Brixton community, and so
further erodes people’s ability to maintain their deep-rooted connections with
the neighbourhood.
Only too
happy to play the bull in the Brixton Arches’ china shop, then, is Eckovision –
a new bar that’s opened opposite Argos on Atlantic Road, where Atlantis bar
used to be. Eckovision arrives via Antic, the bar company that has the good
wisdom to fool you into thinking you’re not drinking in a chain bar, by
adopting a different name for each new venue they open. Those not familiar with
the umbrella company will surely be familiar with the portfolio
: Dogstar, Effra Social and Gremio Brixton are all already local, or
you’ll perhaps know them from across the rest of London, from Tooting Tram and
Social to Farr’s School of Dancing in Dalston, to Sylvan Post in Forest Hill.
There’s a
system, then, to opening an Antic bar: take a property; restore it; keep the
same name. Indeed, it’s a system that’s proved impressively unyielding in the
past: in 2014 the company opened in a former Job Centre on the historically
dilapidated Deptford High Street, and then refused to change the décor or name
it had chosen – The Job Centre – in response to fierce public criticism from
campaigners who suggested that it was turning the locally widespread experience
of being unemployed “into a style feature for the amusement
of those with disposable cash.”
Visiting
on a Thursday night – the bar’s opening night – we order beer. At £4.50 it
seems lightly at the expensive end of the spectrum, until we realise that
they’re serving in 2/3rds of a pint measures, which tips the pricing from
‘lightly expensive’ into ‘hastily downloading the Wonga app’. We pop back into
the bar 48 hours later on Saturday night to take photos and we bump into the
manager – the smaller measures are explained with, “we don’t want to be the
kind of place where people get drunk”. Which could be the reason. Or the reason
could just be profit maximisation, of course. It can be hard to tell in these
situations, but the fact that just 30 seconds after this conversation a customer
walked past us carrying a tray of seven Jägerbombs suggests that they shouldn’t
give up on the job of refining their customer base just yet.
On a
similar note, if anyone is seeking nominations in the ‘worst bit of retail
signage’ category for fictional Brixton awards, we’ll happily direct you
towards the bar’s huge, hideously self-contradictory “Kitchen coming soon… but
until then eating’s cheating (but drink responsibly, yeah?)” sign. For anybody
who has spent the last decade considering the phrase ‘eating is cheating’
to be an infallible idiot-detector, it doesn’t bode particularly well.
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