Thanks to a local resident, Ross, for an interesting article and photos about the long history of our local friendly cafe on Yardley Road.
I wonder whether Margo Hitchinson and Ethel Baldwin foresaw that the cafe they opened at 73 Yardley Road with £50 capital in 1936 would still be thriving seventy-five years later. They named their business 4 O’Clock, which surely evokes a vision of home-made cakes and dainty cups of tea.
We can not know what the two ladies would have made of the He-man’s Breakfasts and Belly-Buster Baguettes sold there in the brash 1980s under the Cabin Cafe banner, but I am sure they would approve of the friendly and efficient service and modern menu offered in recent years by the present owner, Lisa Smith, under the new name Smithy’s.
Ross Cameron
Acocks Green Neighbourhood Forum 