There is no shortage of derelict buildings in Blackpool, but it seems sad when a beautiful building like this is left to go ruin. Yates has another venue in the centre of Blackpool, but this one closed in March 2022 and was put up for sale for £900,000. I think it’s a fair guess to suspect that there weren’t many takers at the time.
If they don’t repair the building soon, it’s not clear that it’ll be able to be saved.
An urban explorer’s look at the building from a few months ago.
Well, that was bloody dreadful. I had intended to walk along the seafront to the railway station, but it was genuinely impossible as the wind was blowing me off my feet and I’m hardly lightweight. I walked along the road parallel and that was challenging enough, not helped by the amount of debris flying about. A lovely lady crossed the road to tell me that I should cross over as there were tiles coming off a roof (just visible in the photo above) which was kind. I also started talking to one of the refuse collectors and he said that they were out working as the bins were flying everywhere and they were trying to secure them. Proper hard working refuse crew that, they were struggling to stand and were having to almost catch bins.
I hardly dare take many photos as I worried the wind might blow my phone out of my hands, but there were bins all over the place and debris was going everywhere where bins had spilled over.
More on this later, but I got to the railway station to find my train cancelled, although I’m making progress towards Sheffield now. I made such slow progress that I was glad to have left plenty of time to get to the railway station. Stay safe out there and all that….
I saw this when on the little expedition that Liam had arranged and it looked suitably tempting as I can be quite greedy on occasion. I reserved a table on-line the previous evening, although I guessed that this wouldn’t really be needed. One thing that did slightly annoy me is that you can book on-line any table size from 2 people to 50 people, they seem to have forgotten about the option for 1 person. The venue is one of the three in the chain, the other two being located in Scotland.
It’s a sizeable place and I can imagine it gets very busy during the summer months. Less so on a cold windy weekday lunchtime in January. The venue did get hit with a 1/5 food hygiene rating a couple of years ago, but they’re back to top marks again now. The welcome was friendly and engaging, although they did try and overcharge me, but that seemed a genuine error.
There are rows of these, it’s the largest lunchtime selection at an all you can eat that I’ve seen. There were plenty of curries, stir fries, random fried food and they had some live cooking stations as well. Everything seemed clean, tidy and organised to me.
Don’t judge me on the beer, I thought it was the best available option. It’s the Birra Moretti and it tasted a little generic, but it was refreshing and clean so it had to do. I very much like brown food I’ve realised, but there is evidence of vegetables in there for the more eagle eyed of my four blog readers. I won’t post every food photo as I don’t want to look greedy, although, in fairness I think I was quite restrained.
I liked the window seat that I was given, it was really quite peaceful. You don’t normally get that sort of things at restaurants like this, it usually feels a bit more for a free for all.
The dessert selection.
Delicious.
The end result is that I didn’t need anything to eat for the day, although I probably over-did it as usual. It would probably be best if I could sign up to some sort of national self-exclusion database from all you can eat locations, as I can get overexcited…. Anyway, I thought the value here was rather good for £18 including the food and drink.
I’m not in the epicentre of Storm Éowyn (I’m not actually sure that storms like this actually have epicentres, but I like the word so it’s staying) as I’m in Blackpool at the moment. But, with a hotel room that looks out onto the Irish Sea (or the American Sea if Trump has renamed that overnight) it’s making quite a noise here as well. I now have the excitement of a 45 minute walk along the coast to get to the railway station, but one of the advantages of not being thin is that I needn’t worry too much about being blown away.
The train I’m taking to Manchester is currently operating as normal, although the rail industry itself is entirely confused as to what happens when trains are cancelled when “Do Not Travel” warnings are issued. Here’s the guidance, which makes some logical sense, but it still relies on some goodwill from rail operators.
This concept is really for my amusement, but I’ll document it anyway as I’m like that.
This was the first image that Liam sent, along with the clue:
“This arty boy can be found between the wish.com Eiffel Tower and a park where Henry VIII had a cottage”
To be honest, I thought this would be easy even without thinking about the clue. There is what could be described as a bloody great clue in the image itself.
I was down by Blackpool Pleasure Beach and it was evident that Liam’s clue was about two miles north, but I wanted to walk that way anyway. Here’s the South Pier which was built in 1893 as the Victoria Pier, but renamed in 1930 to its current name. As a fun engineering fact, the pier is unusual for being built with the Worthington Screw Pile System. I mean, I have no idea, but Liam knows about piling and banging things into the ground whilst making a huge noise.
I had got around three minutes into the walk before I realised I hadn’t had any lunch and it was by now evening. Sometimes, I just have to go for convenience.
£2.80 as I had a 15% off voucher. I used this time to work out where the image was taken from and realised that this might be a challenge as although the Blackpool Tower is quite obvious, the photo could have been taken from three different sides. I decided to have a think about the clue itself, but can’t say that entirely helped me. Liam had been cleverer than I had expected and he’d done this very quickly.
Blackpool Illuminations. I understand that I’m in the off-season for Blackpool, but I counted that there are over 60 hotels in the town for sale at the moment with some at very low prices. I walked by more derelict buildings than I had expected and this does feel like a challenge for Blackpool given just how many hospitality businesses there are fighting for what appears to be a limited trade.
There’s Blackpool Tower starting to appear in the distance. What is evident is just how long Blackpool seafront actually is.
I thought I’d pop in some amusements to see if I could find 2p. I was the only person in there and so thought I might look a bit out of place. I didn’t find 2p.
The King of Rock and Rollercoasters.
The remnants of the Christmas decorations, most of which have been removed now.
Luckily for blog readers, I was in Blackpool in December, so this is what they looked like lit up.
I didn’t realise that the Houndshill shopping centre was shut at night, but they left a little bit open which meant I had to leave from a door I hadn’t expected…. This is the level of top drama I have in life…
It comes out near the Winter Gardens.
It was by this time I realised that I couldn’t find Liam’s location by walking about and I couldn’t work out the clue, it went right over my head. So, I went to the Layton Rakes pub to have half a pint of the Burn’s Auld Sleekit. Under-poured, but it cost 90p and so I couldn’t much complain, and it was a reasonable beer which was creamy with some toffee. Odd service though, the manager forgot to process my card payment so i stood there at the bar whilst he looked at me annoyed why I was hanging around. He proceeded to ignore me until he tried to process the next customer’s payment and couldn’t as he still had my payment on the till.
Anyway, I decided I’d have to take drastic action at this point and sit there with my laptop to work this situation out. Through walking around the roads to the north and south of the Blackpool Tower, I worked out that the photo had to be taken from the east side. Which meant some looking at Google Street View to narrow matters down. It was then when looking at the map that I worked out that Liam’s clue referred to Kingscote Park, which I should have realised earlier. With the options narrowed down, it took just a few minutes to find where the image was taken from.
That meant I knew where I needed to go.
And here we are. I have no idea what the locals through I was doing, but hopefully they thought I was taking a photo of the Blackpool Tower from a weird angle.
Some wall art. Liam sent me the next part of the clue which was “now look right whilst heading to the pub of the extinct dog”. I decided that as it was dark, I’d complete this the following morning. But not before I had walked by the all you can eat restaurant Mr Basrai’s World Cuisines and I decided to book a table for that the next lunchtime as they had 15% off as a January offer.
At this point I popped to the pub.
Back again the next morning, this is the Salvation Army Citadel building, although it was constructed as the Raikes Road Technical School between 1904 and 1905.
My lunch at Mr Basrai’s World Cuisines, as mentioned (but more about in another post as I was suitably surprised and delighted here), before going after the final part of the clue. It took me a while to realise that the pub he meant was the Talbot as I hadn’t realised that this was an extinct dog. Every day is a learning day….
And here we are, Liam’s chosen location. This was painted in July 2022 and it was first thought to be a Banksy, and I’m sure that the home owner got very excited. It’s actually by Mr Eggs, a Manchester street artist.
I was rather pleased with this whole arrangement as I got to see some parts of Blackpool that I wouldn’t have thought of visiting and it meant I got to go to a pub that I really liked and also found an impressive lunch spot for the next day. As a reward, I’ve decided to let Liam do some more of these.
The next in my visit to Good Beer Guide pubs up and down the country was Cask and Tap which is a micro-pub that opened in September 2020 and has received positive on-line reviews. Before this, the building was home to the Nour Lebanese Restaurant and before that the Buddiez American Grill and then before that the Reggae Hut Jamaican Restaurant and then before that the Autumn Leaves carvery. The sign-writers have had a busy few years here.
The beer and cider selection. There were several customers sitting at the bar, but I was welcomed promptly and the environment felt welcoming. I don’t like a blocked bar when I can’t see what beers are available, but they are clearly chalked up to make matters easy.
The first beer (on the left) was the Hollywood Smile from Wensleydale Brewery, a creamy ale with a fruit and hoppy taste. The crisps were OK, better than Walkers but not quite as decadent as Tyrells or Pipers.
This was really very lovely, the Baked Alaska from Yonder Brewing. A beautiful beer with a suitable level of sourness, a bit of lemon meringue flavour, berries and all together a decadent liquid dessert from Yonder.
It’s a bright and vibrant interior, which felt comfortable and cosy. The bar shuts a little earlier than some other nearby locations, which is why I couldn’t make it when I was last in Blackpool, but I can imagine that this avoiding very late night trade is sensible. A very decent selection of beers and ciders in a peaceful environment with the prices being reasonable, so all rather lovely.
