EXCLUSIVE – Matthew Steeples reports on coronavirus and the lack of Arabic arrivals killing off Knightsbridge’s most expensive ‘convenience’ store, Lord’s Food & Wine of Brompton Road
Lord’s Food & Wine at 209 Brompton Road, SW3 was a shop you only ever went into when you were drunk, deranged, desperate (or all of the above). It was grotty and grim and known only for its truly extortionate prices, but to its credit, this favourite of both High Net Worths and the homeless was open 24/7, 365 days per year. This ‘convenience’ store was reliably dreadful, but, today, it was finally locked up and locked up and shuttered for once and for good.
Run by the rudest staff imaginable and featuring a pungent smell of samosas that never escaped its price unconscious patrons, here was a shop where a magnum of vodka could be had for £1,000 a pop whilst they’d flog you something as unlovely as Blue Nun for “just” £18.50 a bottle. They even sold Whispering Angel for those desperate to be “a banger” – but even that rotten rose was marked up from about £22 to an astounding £60.
Aside from visits that emptied my student loan fund in the early 2000s to buy ‘Mother’s Ruin-esque’ gin that I now wouldn’t serve to even the barbarian bear slaying bitch Larysa Switlyk let alone my dearest friends, I especially remember having to walk over to Lord’s on Christmas Day last with a chain smoking twit of a girl from Tunbridge Wells. She would have been utterly unremarkable in any other circumstance, but was so desperate for cigarettes that she was ridiculously in a torrent of uncontrollable tears.
Said spoilt Norah Docker-esque madam was astounded at the £18 price per twenty fags, but promptly handed me the bill for the four packs she claimed to require. I cannot say I’ll actually miss the ludicrousness of Lord’s after that after that expensive Christmas ‘gift’ to a completely pointless person, but, late at night when they eventually return, where will all the ‘gulfies’ go for their late-night fixes now that this shabby shithole of a store has been finally killed off by a combination of coronavirus and its no doubt very greedy landlord?
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I live next to shop. Is girl mentioned called H*****? I’d put money on it! In court 16 Dec if her – she is a Sunday Mirror story seller. Never worked in watch shop. Did work for watch PR but never even bothering turning up. Gott sacked. She owes me hundreds of pounds and lies and lies. Spins lies all the time. Dad is unpleasant and lies for her and lies more. He sold flats once. He is nasty. Rude. She is thick. And a con. [EDITED]
The best and most reliable shop in Knightsbridge when I lived there in the 1990s. The end of an era. What a pity – South Kensington Estate are the greedy landlords. Pigs.
Awful that yet another local business has gone under. It was so overpriced, but it was useful late at night. Why has Felicity Buchan not intervened? She should save this most useful shop. After all she lives round the corner in Walton Street and must use it herself. Come on Flicka – for once do something useful for your constituents.
Sounds ridiculous with crazy prices. I don’t know it but the readjustment will see lots of corner cabins like this close. Sadly.
Cannot believe Lords is closing down. I always went there when I was on my way home on the 14 bus drunk in my youth at Imperial. It should be saved.
Good riddance
How sad not! I live around the corner from this awful emporium, used to be great in my old smoking days in the late 1990’s early 2000’s but agree now its just a vile rip off merchant
The one thing about it that was excellent was its rotisserie counter circa 1999/2000. When they got rid of that, that was the start of the end but remember, everything else useful gradually closed on that strip – the newsagent, the HSBC, the jewellery store, Brasserie St Quentin/Brompton Bar & Grill, Racine, the dry cleaner, etc. And now, its awash with hideous cake stores, Arabic pharmacies and shisha cafes. Such a sad decline and the landlord should be condemned for destroying the community.
Matthew how right you are and I don’t always agree with you ! same for Beauchamp Place a once lovely street has now been ruined due to landlord greed only the map house, san lorenzo and although awful pizza Pomodoro remain from its glory days as one of the nicest streets in Knightsbridge. even dear old Bruce Oldfield has gone
Yes, it is very sad and the lady who alerted me to this story also had a business in Beauchamp Place that eventually closed. The loss of the M&S was especially annoying for locals, I must say.
It was only rated 3/5 for food hygiene. I thought it very dirty and stuck in the 1970s – other than the prices. Can it be replaced with another M&S please?
It being open all night encouraged crime in the area. There were the groups of Arabs that gathered there to get cigarettes and hooch and then there the fools with the noisy automobiles that revved their engines when outside in the early hours. Its demise will bring peace back. Well done South Kensington Estate – finally a good move on your part.
The girl you mentioned should be careful of cancer. Four packets for one day? Dreadful. She plainly needs to seek help from healthcare professionals.
Sounds ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!! Looks like a dump!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wrecking ball required —- but someone’s beaten me to it and it looks like it is already swinging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Was it run by illegals????????? We would not tolerate Down Under!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The idea of another M&S is a great one and one I second. I hope their executives are reading this.
Can the flea pit Bunch of Grapes (BOG) be dealt with next please?
Greed always gets you in the end and that shop was run in a greedy way. The comments about the rudeness of the staff are quite right. They were never helpful in any way at all.
They once charged me £6 for a bottle of bleach. I never returned.
It was convenient for late night emergency runs for wine and spirits but nothing else.
The only thing they didn’t fiddle the prices on was lottery tickets.
I will miss it. Very useful late at night, but everyone is right……. The PRICES were craaaaaaaazy!
I luv’d that jumbled stretch of fine retail establishments. Hugely miss my annual ravenous grouse group outing to Racine; and village shop-fronted Atkinsons jeweller where I bought my first watch; and above all, late-night Lords with its louche, desparate shoppers.
Such a shame that they’ve all gone. Sadly homogenisation is the desire of the landlord plainly.
A friend of mine wanted to open a “posh pawn shop” in the sadly closed Atkinsons when it was closed. Instead, it ended up as another shisha joint ultimately.
The only saviour is that the Good Earth remains. Love that place.
Sad end of a 50 year era of there being a 24 hour General Store in that block. The Bunch of Grapes needs to be better managed because it is one of only 3 pubs left in the area when there used to be 11. The whole area is now dependent on Arabs so the developers get rid of the normal basic outlets. Perhaps Ecclestones daughter who owns a pub site off Knightsbridge might resurrect it!
Sadly the pesky Ecclestones converted the Swag & Tails into a house in 2016. It was for sale a while back, but there’s no way back for it unfortunately. Ditto The Ennismore Arms, The Tea Clipper, etc. Most recently in the first lockdown, The Hour Glass became the latest to shutter and it shows no signs of reopening.
Am I missing something here?
Why on earth would anybody pay the extortionate prices to feed greedy landords to begin with? Is it quite simply the convenience they are open all hours?
18 quid for a packet of gaspers is crazy, a packet of Benson & Hedges was 40 pence the last time I took a drag. You have to wonder sometimes if change is really for the better.
All areas tend to go to the dogs when we allow only one ethnic group to basically take over that area.
I lived round the corner in Egerton Gardens in the 1990s. As a young ex-pat Scot, most of my friends from back home were staggering back from their local pubs on a Friday night with doner kebabs, whilst I was (admittedly also staggering) home at 3am from Lords with a hot rotisserie chicken and some hand cut prosciutto! I do remember that the chickens cost a fiver each in 1993, which was extortionate at the time. You’d frequently have to queue behind some of the ‘It-girls’ of the day, who were usually stocking up with wine and smokes, only to find that they’d run out of cash once they reached the checkout.
Back then, I never felt at risk or saw any violence in the area, even walking home alone in the small hours. However, times have obviously changed and there’s some video footage online of a group of ‘Gulfies’ engaging in some sort of late-night shouty ‘handbags-at-dawn tickling frenzy’ on the front steps of the house I used to live in; they’re even whipping each other with Gucci belts for goodness sake! I always thought that weekend street entertainment was confined to the West End….
Mind you, I’d move back there in a heartbeat if the opportunity arose but agree about the rise of anti-social behaviour and the dearth of ‘normal’ shops.