The Grosvenor Fish Bar

Is it a restaurant? Is it a bar? Is it a jazz club? Is it a chippie?

I'd say it's a bit of all of those. The Grosvenor Fish Bar used to be a pretty mundane city centre chip shop. Decent enough fish and chips, nothing special, and a gloomy cellar where you could sit and 'eat in' rather than 'take out'. Then it changed hands a couple of years or so ago.

The new owner - an American chap who you can see on the left in this photo - funked up the decor a bit, did away with the gloomy cellar as a place to have your food, installed wooden stools and wooden eating bench-style eating surfaces, added a few things to the menu and started playing the most fabulous background music. Jazz, show tunes, ragtime, loads of stuff which is most definitely not 'muzak'.

And there are a couple of lovely neon hearts in the windows! And wooden fish swimming across the walls.

The prices have not been inflated to cover the cost of all this loveliness and it's perfectly okay just to order a bag of chips to 'eat in'. There are small portions on offer too. And if you want, you can buy your fish and chips at the Grosvenor then hop across the cobbles to eat them in the Birdcage, the pub across the way, who will provide a plate, knife and fork.

Today, a Sunday, the Grosvenor was open as part of the madness (in a nice way) that was the Norwich Lanes Summer Street Fair. Very hot, very busy and I had great fun playing uke with the gang from the uke society outside one of the music shops.

No time or cash for fish and chips though, but my mate Neil bought me a pint after the gig.

I hope to get back to commenting very soon, I hope. Things are still quite wobbly but we're just taking each day at a time.