Regent Ice Cream Parlor Comment

A Memory of Sutton.

Not sure what glyn.brian7 was seeing out the back of the Regent Cafe, but my mum and dad ran a cafe on weekends in Chipstead at the entrance to Banstead woods from the late 1940's until the early 60's and my dad was the only other person as best I know that Tony Capaldi allowed to sell his ice cream. We went to Tony's cafe every week to pick up the ice cream, and I spent half my childhood into my teenage years there. Tony often took us in the back into the "factory," where there were very large floor-to-ceiling shiny steel (stainless steel?) containers that the ice cream was made in. It came out of a tap at the bottom into steel containers about 15" high that we then loaded into our van. For a while my dad had a blue Bedford van that he converted to an ice cream van and sold Tony's ice cream all around the area where we then lived (Chipstead and Coulsdon). Tony would always make a 99 wafer specially for me - he knew I liked them better than cornets. We also did the 99 wafers and cornets from our ice cream van and from our cafe on the downs just like Tony did them. We would get huge long lines at our cafe on warm days, especially during bluebell season. Tony and my dad were good friends and I spent many an hour perched on one of the stools in The Regent Cafe eating my ice cream or in the factory in the back while Tony and my dad chatted. I went to Sutton High school, and often went to Tony's for an ice cream after school or on my dinner hour. Some other threads characterize Tony as grumpy, but I remember him as very kind.