Where Is That Café? Does That Pub Still Exist?

Have you watched One Day yet? The new Netflix adaptation of the David Nicholls book is utterly bingeable (and I’ve been off sick so yes, I did all 14 episodes in two days).

Apart from the nostalgia for a time when we used telephones for speaking to people and not as a lens through which to see and record our lives, it had some brilliant scenes around food. (Well, also drink but those are a bit less glamorous and a whole lot more damaging, truth be told.)

Since I’m more or less the same vintage as the characters, I remember going to a fancypants restaurant with cocktails and cigarette girls in the early nineties (not that I behaved like Dexter…) and I definitely ended up in a sweaty, seedy nightclub once or twice. 

But I found myself wondering as I watched the almost unbearably sad love story play out, where is that café? Does that pub still exist? I can’t be the only one. So I’m surprised that Quaglino’s and Smith & Wolensky – to name two using their real names – haven’t capitalised on the love for One Day and posted about their parts in the drama. 

Even if those precise locations aren’t your clients, chances are that if your teams are discussing what everyone’s watching/visiting/talking about, there’s interest out there in the wider world in places that tap into that late eighties/early nineties buzz – both for oldies like me and Gen Zs who might like to playact those carefree times. 

Now’s your chance to promote any venue that falls into that category, while the One Day love story has us in its grip…