On one of those early hot Saturdays this year, I turned to my girlfriend and nodded to a corner across the road. “D’you realise,” I said, “We spend most of our weekends just wandering between neighbourhoods with Gail’s in?” I think on that day we knocked off three.
I say “knocked off”— we didn’t actually go in any of them. Come off it. Who wants to go in a Gail’s? Who wants to queue with the Lululemon’ed lot, with their gritted grins endless competition? “Well, Tabitha does fencing now,” you might hear. “As well as her riding. She even combines them sometimes.” Apparently jousting’s making a comeback in NW3.
Let’s say you’ve hurdled these gazelles and make it inside. Coffee and a pastry, how much could that be? Oh, I see, about a tenner. A single cheese straw can’t really be three quid, can it? No no, it can. A harrowing thought settles like fog: you’re One Of Those People now. One Of Those People Who Talk About How Much Everything Used To Cost. Gail’s, the shortcut to premature ageing.
So fair play to Walthamstow, where residents are kicking off about the thought of a Gail’s joining their ranks — and not just because they don’t want to hear about little Alfie, or find themselves moaning about the prices.
Who wants to go in a Gail’s? Who wants to queue with the Lululemon’ed lot, with their gritted grins and endless competition?
In part, it’s reported to be a “fight against gentrification”, which must be nonsense — in Walthamstow, that particular horse has long bolted the stable. There’s some politics being thrown about too — Luke Johnson, the chain’s part-owner and chairman, has been vocally pro-Brexit, but rather anti climate activists — which E17 sorts are said to be none too happy with. The bigger thing, though, seems to be a hope to preserve what already exists. The petition reads: “Gails, although respected for their quality, bring a risk of overshadowing our much-loved local stores due to their massive scale and advertising reach.
“This could lead to decreased visibility and pedestrian traffic towards independently run businesses, threatening their very existence and dismantling the character and diversity crucial to Walthamstow's charm.”
Apparently hundreds have signed the petition so far, perhaps not realising that if it does open, they could just ignore the place. No matter. What’s interesting is, whichever way you ice the bun, Gail’s is just a posh Greggs. They both thrive on sausage rolls. But it’s not just these two: all bakeries are all much of a muchness, dealing in bread and pastries, in sandwiches of some sort. The success of Gail’s and Greggs is proof that a very real appetite for the bakery exists — take the traditional formula, add a coffee machine, et voilà. Perhaps there are lessons there.
Still, as the petition says — and if we take politics out of it — Walthamstow’s protest is about the endless homogeneity loop that marks modern life: once it was about Pizza Express and Zizzi and Côte, and about Starbucks, Costa, Nero. Walthamstow’s residents may not really find anything offensive about Gail’s sleek offering, which seems built for those who live there. They might not mind its twee class-signifier status; in its way, Gail’s is the Cath Kidston of cafés (Ottolenghi the restaurant counterpart). What they are really objecting to is everything being the same. Conformity once marked the middle classes; now it is their anathema. Gail’s is just learning it the hard way.
