The restaurant-that-is-taking-forever-to-complete now has a name, and it is [drum roll please] "Caffe Piccolo". Googling for it's pretty thankless though as there seem to be an abundance of Caffe Piccolos around. There are lights and stuff in there now but it still looks as though it's a long way from opening, although they are advertising for staff. A quick trawl through Sutton Council's planning permission site shows that the original application was put forward in May 2005......... that's how long!
The Sainsburys (aka The Old Camping Shop) is due to open next Friday (19th Jan) so we'll see what that brings to the cosmopolitan ambience of Worcester Park [ha, snort!]. I'm guessing a bunch of apparently abandoned cars at the top of Central Road under the guise of "parking" while the owners pop-in to get their lottery tickets and stuff.
For those who like whimsical observations from Surrey I can recommend a visit to the blog of PumpkinStrokeMarrow down in Epsom, a recently retired gent's musings on a suburban life filled with books, sudoku, Chelsea buns, allotments and..... deer fences! A different world, for those that are in need of one.
With a flurry of activity the windows of the new Caffe Picollo have been open while they work on them and I have to say it looks really nice inside. In my mind it's could be competing with Pizza Express ("inside it's Chelsea, outside it's Worcester Park" ) for the best-looking restaurant in Worcester Park. Let's hope they've spent the same amount of time preparing the menu as they have building the thing.
Across the road from there, however, the "Worcester Park Circle of Life" has kicked in with the news that Choices Video is to close at the end of Thursday (18th Jan). They do have a sale on, which looks quite good, but didn't have anything in that I really wanted or didn't already have. Hopefully on Thursday they'll have slashed the prices even more so I can stock up on movies that I'll never get around to watching unless I'm cashing in on my critical illness cover.........
Further down Central Road the old Going Places is to become a supermarket of sorts. How they're going to compete with Waitrose, Iceland, the long-established Costcutter, the more specialist Ryan Gate "AND* the new Sainsburys Express is beyond me, but they've applied to be an off-licence, and there was a juggernaut from Poland outside the place last night unloading all sorts of shelving. Look like we shall find out what they're made of soon enough.
Along with pretty much everywhere else in the South East we got an inch of snow today. There was predictable travel chaos but thanks to the Worcester Park Train Times I was able to stay home until I knew there was a train coming
Wel, the news Sainsburys Local has been open for a week and it looks like the children of Cheam Common Infants/Junior have adopted as their own if school chucking-out time is anything to go by. Not much else to say really as only time will tell whether it drives Costcutter out. It does look very nice inside but I haven't actually bought anything in there yet, though I'm the only member of the Brinkster clan who hasn't.
On a slightly surreal note myself and Mrs Brinkster were walking along Brinkley Road when a car pulled up and and a post-middle-aged lady asked us if we knew "a little shop on the High Street that sold lace and buttons and things". Having guessed that she meant the quirky Broadway Bargains we pointed her in the right direction and saw her vainly trying to find somewhere to park (as it's right next to the new Sainsburys). This left me with a couple of unanswered questions:
How would you know about Broadway Bargains if you weren't from Worcester Park (having to ask gave that away)?
If you knew about a shop in Worcester Park how could you then not know where it was (e.g. at the top of the hill)?
May be there's a website out there called 'lacedoiliesandfunnyknickknacks.co.uk' which had a message in its forum....
Broadway Bargains on the left - click for larger image.
