Fat Piggies
restaurant converted into Buddy Allens, the first in a long line of
different identities for this pub 'just behind the cinema'. Billing itself as a sports bar, Buddys (no one seems to know whether Buddy Allen was ever a real person) had American football and basketball stuff on the roof, although no one really noticed.
It was always packed at the weekend, when there was often a disco. It used to be considered expensive, but prices in the rest of Canterbury soon caught up. A great place for the pre-Churchills atmosphere; also Canterbury's prime spot for pulling a slapper from
[insert local village here].
Buddy Allens closed for a refit and Bar Xtreme (note the spelling) emerged. The place is unrecognisable as the place it once was, and
was a change for the better. By day, it has the air of a quiet coffee bar, with a couple of pool tables, offering table-service - unique to this pub
at the time, but by night its as busy as it ever was. The pool tables were replaced nightly with a small dancefloor, with DJ Clarky overseeing the disco duties. Drinks prices
went up to match the improvements (£2.50 a pint? Yowch!). The toilets were quite unique, too,
with a weird opaque-glass wall where you could pretend to see into the opposite
sex's bathroom. Exciting at the time
for the people of Canterbury, despite communal toilets being commonplace
elsewhere. It
became Tonic Bar Bistro, although little changed inside. This didn't last as
long as the previous incarnations, and its successor, Bar 121 even less - to the
point we didn't even make it before it closed
It's now the Farmhouse; quite a
contrast to its previous guises. |
