The gear left, the racks stayed, and a dive store on Maidstone Crescent turned into a room where people eat oysters and count points.
Since 2023
What was still in here when we took the keys
Three walls of steel racking, a compressor housing bolted to the slab, eighty laminated current charts and a hand-drawn depth profile of the reef that somebody had been correcting in marker since the nineties.
All of it stayed. The charts are behind glass now, which is the only change we made to them.
New: the kitchen line along the back wall, the cold bar, the felt, the lamps and a very serious amount of air conditioning.
30 years
The store supplied charters out to the reef.
6 years
It sat shut with the fit-out untouched.
2023
The doors opened again, with a kitchen in them.
About the place
Two things people assume
Are you connected to a dive operator?
Not any more. The store's licence went with the business that moved out; we sell dinner and pour drinks, and the only tanks left in here are decoration.
Is the card room the main event?
Depends who you ask. Half the room never picks up a deck, and the kitchen would be doing the same trade if the tables were not there.
Are you over 18?
This is a licensed venue for adults: a reef kitchen, a cold bar and six card tables.
