Coffee |Bar Cowboys

A Memory of Belfast.

After school - Belfast Royal Academy - a liitle gang of us would take the bus down to Royal Avenue and head for the Lombard restaurant in Lombard Street. It was a very comfortable, spacious place, founded by the Ulster Temperance Society and open evenings too, where you could sit as long as you liked, with waitress service, over a cup of tea. It'd be packed with school students in the mid-late afternoon.

Later we transferred our loyalties to Isibeal's coffee bar, down a narrow street opposite the City Hall. It was smaller and quieter there. Matthew and Joyce looked after us and let us sit for hours over that single cup of tea. Van Morrison and his band "Them" would wander in some afternoons. Isibeal's was open all evening too. Tnere was no need for underage boozing in some grotty pub.
Does anyone else recall those days of innocent enjoyment I wonder?

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