Diary of a Shopkeeper, 15th May
I saw a ghost this week, and its name was Larry.
One of our importers had decided to stage their first ever trade event in Scotland. An all-day wine tasting in Edinburgh? It would have been rude not to go. Over a hundred wines were lined up for us to try, many of them introduced by the winemakers themselves. What a joy to hear these passionate folk from Rioja and Breedekloof and Bekka Valley talk about their latest creations. I look forward to introducing them to our customers over the summer.
The tasting took place in Infirmary Street in Edinburgh, where Burke and Hare reputedly delivered bodies to the anatomists two hundred years ago. But it wasn’t their ghosts I saw. Robert Louis Stevenson frequented the pubs of the area as a student, soaking up stories of Edinburgh’s Jekyll-and-Hyde underworld as well as 80 shilling. But it wasn’t his ghost I saw either. Late in the day, as I headed homewards down Nicolson Street, the spectre appeared to me, stopping me in my tracks and sending a thrill down my spine.
It was the ghost of Larry’s Lunchette.
In the 1970s and 80s, Larry’s was a café frequented by students, the under-employed, and the hard-working – in short, all of those in need of a cheap, filling meal and not minding too much that the vinyl seats in the booths were ripped here and there, and that the crockery had been scraped and scrubbed for so many years that its patterns were worn away to shadows. It was also a meeting place where plans were hatched, dreams were expounded, and romances incubated over milky coffee and sausage softies with brown sauce.
Larry himself was rarely seen. He’d pop in occasionally with a box full of eggs or a drum of cooking oil, swapping wisecracks with regulars and the two redoubtable women who really ran the place. One had a beehive rather like Marge Simpson’s, and the other wore cat-eye glasses that were the spit of Edna Everage’s. Together they gave the warmest of welcomes to all, even those spending a solitary hour over a single cup of tea. And they served up the heartiest of fast foods: bacon rolls, egg and chips, burgers piled high with ladlefuls of fried onions.
Marcel Proust had his Madeleine cake, and I have Larry’s Mini Grill: all the above, plus a sausage or two, and a buttered roll. The cost of this feast? £1.85 – a lot of money in 1987, so reserved for birthdays and special occasions.
No matter how special the occasion, the Mini Grill will never return. The ghost I saw in Nicolson Street was the battered frontage of a long-abandoned café. The curving, concrete steps to the front door were stained and cracked. The custard-yellow wall-tiles were grimy and covered in graffiti, some gone completely. The window – oh how we coveted the window table! – was hastily whitewashed and half-hidden with ripped posters. A sign on the door said, “Danger: keep out.”
Sic transit gloria Larry’s. Where is he now? And his wonderful staff? I wish I could say how grateful I am for all the good food and good times I had there. Instead, I will express my gratitude for our own present-day casual eateries. Kirkwall and indeed many parts of Orkney are lucky to have so many welcoming independent cafés and tearooms. I won’t single any out for special praise, as they all have their good points, even if none of them offers a Mini Grill.
Eat, drink and be Larry!
If reviving Larry’s appeals to you, the premises is currently for sale for only £225,000. You may have to spend a pound or two doing it up, however. Worth noting too that the usable area is only three and a half metres by nine and a half - and that includes the kitchen and counter down the far end. Not much wonder the benches in the booths were narrow…
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 18th May 2022. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.