‘I went to the London streets “resisting gentrification’ and found the city’s cheapest pub – but there was a catch’ – Anna Highfield

Perusing the depths of Reddit is not normally an activity I would recommend to most self-respecting citizens, but I recently happened to be doing just that when I stumbled upon a rare gem.

The rather niche thread had been headlined ‘Which areas do you think are least likely to be gentrified?’ and subsequently consisted of various Londoners proudly fighting it out over which of them lived in the biggest, quote, “Sh**hole.”

One particular answer on the thread caught my eye, though.

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Narrowing their personal choice right down almost to a single street, someone had written: “The area around Blackstock road and Seven Sisters road in Finsbury Park is valiantly resisting gentrification.”

To which someone had even more mysteriously replied: “We all know what really goes on in those Internet cafes…”

A Reddit thread named Blackstock Road as an area which was ‘valiantly resisting gentrification’

Naturally, the area was begging to be explored – if for no other reason than to find out exactly what does go on in ‘those internet cafes’.

As I set off on my bike towards Blackstock Road, I made a mental list of all the neighbourhood attributes I would consider to be a sign of gentrification.

Cafes serving more than one different type of ‘alternative’ milk for coffee, for example, and optional avocado add-ons with breakfast.

The presence of hair salons which bizarrely double up as something else for reasons I can never fathom; Shoreditch is prime territory for this, with barber-coffeeshops, barber-bars, and even barber-massage parlours.

‘Craft Beer’ bars, organic veg shops frequented by mums who are willing to pay a small fortune for a single carrot, and ludicrously unaffordable yet poky flats on display in estate agent windows.

The list goes on, but you get the gist.

So I had my eyes peeled for signs like this as I pulled up onto Blackstock Road, and I have to say, at first I was pleasantly surprised.

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At first the road genuinely seemed to have not been gentrified, but then the cracks began to show

I passed a series of vibrant but tired-looking fast food joints, including Sunlight Kebab and a couple of PFC’s (apparently a rival of the more mainstream KFC, it stands for ‘Perfectly Fried Chicken’).

Various ancient-looking hardware stores, exteriors piled high with an assortment of pots, buckets, mops, tools, and other paraphernalia lined the street, and a chemist which looked like it hadn’t had a revamp since it opened in the 1930s.

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There was a dry cleaners store with some kind of terrifying strobe lighting display adorning the storefront, and the brilliantly named ‘JNF Haircutters’, as if just the term ‘Hairdressers’ would be too pretentious for the area.

You won’t get your hair ‘dressed’ here, you can get it cut and be bloody grateful, the sign seemed to say.

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If you look closely, you can see that the ‘Fruit and Veg’ in this grocers are actually phones

But I wasn’t far into my journey down Blackstock Road when the the illusion quickly began to shatter.

The first red flag was one of the dreaded aforementioned we-don’t-just-cut-hair barber shops; the offending salon’s side hustle of choice was artisan coffee.

After that, it was like I couldn’t stop seeing them – a bookshop doubled up as a high-end wine bar; posters for barefoot running groups, pottery classes and yoga; and an abundance of overpriced sourdough loaves for sale.

I had been sold a lie; Blackstock Road was not ‘valiantly resisting gentrification’ at all, but quite frankly succumbing to it quicker than you could say ‘quinoa’.

It was barely one stop short of having its own Waitrose, and I’m convinced that ‘Haircutters’ will be a moustache-grooming salon before we know it, complete with a vintage motorcycle showroom and repair service.

As a last-ditch attempt to salvage my experience of the area, I scanned desperately around to find the dingiest-looking pub in sight.

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I found quite possibly the cheapest pub in north London – but had to pay a different kind of price

The ‘King’s Head Sports and Music Bar’ looked like a likely candidate, so I pushed the door and trudged in, dragging my reluctant companion with me.

Practically the entire pub turned its head as we entered – which wasn’t exactly hard, seeing as there were only about four occupants – but it was still slightly unnerving.

Clearly we weren’t the usual crowd.

Heading to the bar, I nervously ordered a pint of Strongbow and a ‘House Double’ vodka and diet coke.

As the bartender began pulling my pint, a thin stream of cider began trickling woefully out of the nozzle.

After a short yet tedious wait, another bartender – apparently also one of the four customers – got up from the table (where he had been nursing two pints simultaneously) to lend a helping hand.

Thank god, I thought – that was, until I caught sight of his grubby hands, which he subsequently employed to start furiously coaxing the rubber nozzle back onto the tap.

“That’ll do,” he nodded, returning to his two-pint-table.

The other bartender finished pulling the pint, which leaked out of the tap at a tragic and only marginally improved pace.

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Inside the King’s Head pub, where the large pub cat can be seen sitting on a table in the background

For the bargain price of £5, the ‘House Double’ consisted of a double vodka poured from an archaically dusty bottle and topped up with mixer from a bottle of flat, warm diet coke.

I tried not to think about when the glasses had been cleaned.

When we came to pay, the round didn’t even make it to the card limit of £10, which was in my experience a first for north London, and at least one good takeaway from the experience.

But in spite of the incredibly cheap drinks, my final experience of the pub was so scarring I actually don’t think I can ever go back.

After we settled at our table (an old man trudged past for a smoke and made some kind of strange gravelly tutting sound at us while leering menacingly), I quickly looked back over to see what our grubby-fingered friend was up to.

And that’s when I saw it – he slowly popped open an old and grisly-looking packet of pork scratchings and started sharing them.

With his companion.

The pub cat.

My mouth hung open in horror as I watched him dish them out slowly between himself and the incredibly large feline, who gobbled up the morsels greedily.

The pair seemed very content – perhaps the other pint was for the cat, too.

Needless to say, we necked our drinks and ran for it.

I will quite happily pay an extortionate price for my next pint in London – just so long as I don’t have to witness scenes like that ever again.

Do you have a favourite cheap pub in London? Let me know at [email protected].

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