Queer Fayre at Royal Vauxhall Tavern - July 2011 - Bar Wotever

This Saturday (30th July) from 12 noon to 6pm, there will be a Queer Fayre at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, organised by Bar Wotever.  The Fayre will feature everything from food to art and craft. There will be a range of stalls selling vintage clothes and second hand books etc. all with a queer theme.  All of this for a mere £2 entrance fee (adult only).   The RVT bar will be open all day.

The last Fayre featured a stall selling rude, nude gingerbread people.  This year, they're promising vodka jellies and vegan food too.  You can find anything in Vauxhall :-)  The featured DJ is Joe Pop.

Additional blurb on Bar Wotever's July 2011 Queer Fayre here.

Vauxhall Park - wandering out of SE11

Last week, we went for a brief visit outside of SE11. We just about missed the Vauxhall Park fete - I had forgotten it was on, and we were looking for somewhere warm and sunny to go and relax. We were pondering the green space outside of the Vauxhall Tavern, but it was absolutely packed with sun worshippers already, so settled on Vauxhall Park. That's when I remembered the fete, but we arrived just as everybody was taking down the stalls. Still, there were quite a few people milling about, and we really really liked the green space. There was very little traffic noise from within the park, considering that we were parallel with the Nine Elms Intersection (in this respect, it seems better than Kennington Park)! I never realised that Vauxhall Park is so peaceful, nor so pretty. I haven't got any pictures of the main green space as it was cluttered with things and vehicles being removed. However, there's a big field of lavender that it's possible to relax in, and a well-grown pergola nearby which you can see below. Everybody was enjoying the sun... Excitingly, a new cafe is to open in Vauxhall Park. It hasn't been completely finished yet, but I imagine it should be complete within the next week or so. The picture I took doesn't really do it justice.


The pergola:




The field of lavender:



The new cafe:

Dippy Egg Cafe

The third new event of interest (I hoped to blog about this a week ago) was the opening of the Dippy Egg cafe. Dippy Egg has taken over where Jado left off. Jado was a fairly standard workers cafe on Kennington Road that closed at about 3pm every day, and sold a combination of fried breakfasts and sandwiches. Within the last month, we went there on June 1st, it has been painted bright green, named Dippy Egg and gained new management.

The new manager, named Gill, has lots of very exciting plans for the venue, and it is due to be re-painted and have some groovy lighting put in. There are other plans, but I'll wait to see what happens before blogging further. Originally, we had intended to try Franklins, but we gave up due to the length of wait, and went and had a roast dinner at the Dippy Egg. The roast potatoes are as good as any home made potatoes I've tasted, and the rest of the meal was excellent - nothing tasted over or under cooked, which is always a risk with roast dinners. It was all very reasonably priced. Service was superb, and we felt happily greeted. The downstairs (which I've never visited before) is now covered with campy bright patterned table cloths, and various event posters adorn the walls. The manager has various links with the Vauxhall Tavern, so that is a repeating theme. I'm hoping it's going to become a quieter, more homely VT, with food. Right now, it has a feel that I've termed Retro-camp.

We'll definitely be going back. In the meantime, I managed to grab a few photos of the "before" deco. just as a number of customers left, and the next lot hadn't arrived. I'll also try to post "after" pictures when all the decorating has been done. Take a look at the fabulous window sill:











Edit: They also have a website: http://thedippyeggcafe.com/