There was a place, just off Cambridge Circus, on the corner of Tower Street and Earlham Street. Now it's an EasyCoffee, whatever that is. I think it was simply called Number 1 Cafe, just a narrow little triangular takeaway, really. Counters on two sides as you walked in, a high bench with 3 or 4 seats facing out to your right, usually taken.
It was run by 4 or 5 North African guys, I think they were brothers and cousins; they basically did baguettes, salads and baked potatoes with fillings. That was it, I think.
I worked at Blackwell's Charing Cross from September 2001 to July 2002 (I'd work another year at Blackwell's London Business School 2003-04). My interview was on September 11th. The planes had hit the towers just before I'd left home, I took the Piccadilly line in, everyone was staring at TVs through shop windows. I had my interview with the manager, both of us probably only half-there. He told me I had the job, I went home. When I got home, I saw the replay of the towers falling. I remember my first thought "is that a controlled explosion?" ... I went out for a drink in the Dove by the river that night, we looked up suspiciously at every plane passing.
My first day was the 17th. The shifts were 9 (or 9.30) to 6, 11 to 7.30, 12 to 8.30, with two 15 minutes mini-breaks and a solid lunch hour. I loved those lunch hours. I liked the job itself, a lot of standing around talking to co-workers about books, films and music, something which is never not to be treasured. It could be reasonably hard work, but it was generally a pressure-free life. There were pluses and minuses to the timings of each shift. With the later ones, you got a sleep in, avoided rush hour, and the shop was very quiet between 7 and 8.30 each evening, so it was barely working anyway, so I usually preferred that shift, for all that there wouldn't be much evening left once it was over.
But, yes, the lunch hours. Walking around Soho, going to the music shops, being part of London life. My first lunch hour, I saw a queue outside Number 1 Cafe, thought it a good sign, and joined the queue. I probably got my lunch from there 70% of my lunchbreaks, despite there being many other options. It was cheap and delicious - the baguettes and potatoes were always perfectly crispy/soft. The range of fillings was simple but great, and their system was a universal lesson in efficiency. You were never waiting for more than a couple of minutes. It was genuinely one of the most impressive things I've seen, as each member of the line-up knew who was his customer, as they replaced what was empty, as they handed each other fillings without delay, without looking.
They were open all day and the food stayed as fresh whether your lunch break began at 12, 1, 2, 4 or 5.
I can find no record of the place online, none whatsoever. I guess they were bought out or moved on. Perhaps they were only there for a couple of years, who knows.
Sometimes I'd bag one of the stools, sometimes I'd eat my lunch walking around, sometimes I'd take it back to the staff room at the bookshop. I never enjoyed the chat in the staff room as much as that on the shop floor, for some reason. But I didn't mind sitting near the door as goods-in was just outside and they were always playing good music. I got to realise goods-in was the best gig in the shop. Hard work, but convivial and at your own pace and with your own soundtrack.
As I said, I worked at Blackwell's again a couple of years later, at the newly opened branch attached to London Business School, near Regent's Park. It was much less convivial. It wasn't much of a bookshop at all, really, more a delivery outlet for textbooks. I was only working part-time, 20 hours a week if i recall, but I had to work very hard.
I helped set the shop up with a couple of old pros, which was nice enough, but they then left, and then there was, perhaps, the odd mis-hire, and quick turnover. I was often there on my own, running the shop, and I was also the only person who knew how to process books coming in and going out, as well as do deliveries to the nearby business school, so within that 20 hours, I was by and large doing all the work that was crucial to the shop running.
I was still on minimum wage and, though I knew I'd only be there for a year, I remember thinking I was probably more siginificant to the running of the shop than my wage indicated. I think I even asked for a bit more, was turned down, and left not long after. I don't think the shop lasted there for all that long, to be honest. It was as far from fun, literary bookshop working as you could get, and I never found a great sandwich shop round there.
The most fun I had was out the back, in the goods bay, overhearing a flash young estate agent having constant arguments with his girlfriend. Aah, happy days.
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