The Time Bubble

Wimpy, Happy Eater, Berni Inns: Names of Great British eateries from a bygone era guaranteed to stir nostalgia in anyone over a certain age. And all defunct - or so I thought until a couple of months ago. That was when I heard that Wimpy were to open in Bicester. My first thought was do they still exist? My second was yes, get in! I was even more overjoyed when I heard they were to be moving into the old (sadly missed) Maba building. As a resident of Chapel Street and fast food devotee with a school run taking me directly past the building twice a day, they could not have got their marketing any more spot on. Talk about location, location, location! The view from across the street, shortly before opening. I was trying to work out the last time I went in a Wimpy and I have narrowed it down to some time in the Autumn of 1993. I was working at Tesco Head Office in Cheshunt at the time and often used to pop into the nearby Waltham Cross shopping centre at lunchtime. One wet Wedne...

If I was a restaurant critic I could dine out every week for the rest of the year in Bicester, as the openings in the new shopping centre are coming thick and fast. Well I'm not a restaurant critic - well not yet anyway, however I feel duty bound to you my readers who have come to expect some food related anecdote in every entry to visit each new eaterie that opens in town. Even if it doesn't involve sausages! Today's venue does in fact offer sausages in a hot dog format, but I am all "sausaged out" after yesterday (see previous entry), so did not sample them today. I was at Deans Diner, an exciting new restaurant that opened yesterday in Bicester's new town centre development. Deans Diner is a small chain (this is only their fifth outlet) of restaurants that promise to help you "Live The American Dream!". Think of those old 50s style American diners of the style Marty McFly visited in Back To The Future and you'll get an idea of what to ex...

It's nearly here! Well it has taken a lot of time, a lot of planning, a lot of wondering whether it would ever even happen, but finally the new town centre and Sainsbury is on the verge of opening. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say this is the biggest thing to ever happen in this town. Well at least the biggest thing to happen in the 22 years I have lived here. Over that 22 years there have been changes. But it is also fair to say a lot of things should have, and could have changed sooner. But no matter about that now - it is finally here. How ludicrous is it that in a town this size there has been no cinema? In fact there did used to be one, down London Road but you would have to be pretty long in the tooth to remember it - it closed down decades ago. But it matters not that we have had to wait so long for one to come - the point is that it is now finally here. "Baaaa...do you think they'll be showing Silence Of The Lambs?" When I came ...