And so it’s gone.
The Cat and Fiddle, the legendary Hollywood hostelry for expat Brits and those who loved them, finally closed its doors for good on Monday.
The Sunset Boulevard pub has been an institution for almost three decades, standing the test of time while other bars and restaurants came and went. It finally fell victim, as detailed in these very pages, to commercial pressures from a bigger richer tenant who simply wanted their space.
Sic transit gloria as the Romans used to say.
Unsurprisingly the pub was jammed during its final few days, as regulars, occasional visitors and the merely curious came to have a pint and say goodbye. News of the pub’s closing even reached across the Atlantic to Italy, where former regular Morrissey, late of the Smiths, penned a blog post lamenting the pub’s demise, opining: “A large part of me dies at news that the pillowy bosom of the Cat And Fiddle is to close down on December 15th, making the universe all wrong. A beacon of light will soon be a headstone, and where will we now go to chew each other’s fat?”
Where indeed? There really is no other British watering hole like the Cat & Fiddle, with its graceful Mission architecture, tranquil leafy plaza and the tinkling waters of that gloriously oversized fountain. Nowhere with the rock and roll history, where you were as likely to rub shoulders with penniless Irish artists as with millionaire rockers, and where for so many years the locals were entertained both by the gregarious founder, Kim Gardner and his able deputy, “Marquee” Brian McCaffrey, late of this parish but now of Dublin, and beloved of a whole generation of Irish rockers.
When the British Weekly had its offices on nearby Wilcox Avenue back in the early Nineties, the Cat became our de facto lunch room, and one of the great things about it was that by day it was a fantastically civilized place for a nice quiet lunch, but by night it became a different beast entirely, full of leather clad rockers and mini skirted girls, goths and headbangers and builders and executives and everything in between, all enjoying some good beer, authentic pub grub and endless conversation.
Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane, Ronnie Wood may have been the names that made the pub famous, but for longtime expats like myself the bigger draw were the colorful cast of characters who could so often be found there in the early days: The Bournemouth Boys, Motorcycle Richie, John Sneddon, Michael Reilly, Billy Woods, Thomas Hynes and Martin Devane to name just a few.
Since Kim Gardner’s death a decade ago, the pub has been largely run by his daughter, Ashlee, with Kim’s widow Paula operating quietly as a consigliere in the background. According to a BBC report this week Ashlee was upbeat despite the air of sadness that hung over the place, preferring to concentrate on the pub’s next location, wherever that may be.
“I was more or less born here,” she said, “but we’ve moved before, back in 1982. We’ve got some of the old staff working tonight too, and though it’s a bit emotional, it isn’t the end.”
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