Legendary venue was 'distinct from everything else' and changed Liverpool's nightlife

Paddy Byrne knew there was nothing in Liverpool like the Everyman Bistro.

The 79-year-old from Toxteth grew up in the years after WWII when Britain was still rationing food. In those days, he says restaurants were very formal and mainly populated by the middle classes. It was travelling to Europe on a student grant that opened Paddy's eyes to a different world. He saw an entirely new approach to food and drink - something modern, accessible and informal.

He wanted to bring that approach back to Liverpool and wasn't quite prepared for the impact it would make.

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Paddy and his business partner Dave Scott set up The Everyman Bistro in 1970 when they were young graduates. Founded in the basement beneath The Everyman Theatre, on Hope Street, in Liverpool city centre, the bistro developed a legendary reputation as the epicentre of the city's arts scene. It blazed a trail in the hospitality industry before it closed in 2011 when the theatre was refurbished.

Sitting in his current venture The Pen Factory, dressed stylishly in a denim shirt and a worker jacket, Paddy spoke to the ECHO about the legacy of the bistro and the impact it had in Liverpool.

He said: "I wandered around France from when I was about 17, experiencing oysters and cider in Brittany, riding around on a bike. Wandering around Europe, things stood out as being quite different from Britain. Nobody really ate out in Britain then.

"It was a very middle class pastime - people sat quite formally in pairs around linen tablecloths. It was all quite staid - there was no passion in it at all. In Europe, eating was so much more of a social activity. I can think of going through France and you would go to a local restaurant at 12pm - there would be a long table, every metre or so there would be a bottle of wine, a jug of water.

"It was a cheap, healthy lunchtime meal. The man who swept the road outside the bank would be sitting next to the manager of the bank and there would be chatter and general engagement. Food and drink were happy companions in Europe. This was something I wanted to bring to Liverpool."

The Everyman Bistro opened in September 1970 starting with one room and expanding to three. Its philosophy was to offer that informal approach to food and drink, serving continental-style dishes in a communal environment, largely made up of long benches.

Its location, close to Liverpool's universities and art colleges, meant it became bohemian bringing students and creatives together. The fact it was open until midnight also made it the final stop for certain people searching for another drink or two after they left pubs at 11.

About establishing that philosophy, Paddy said: "This area of Liverpool had a lot of cultural echoes of Soho in London. A big influence would have been the arts college. That was really meaningful. You got Adrian Henri, Sam Walsh, Jeff Nuttall, Arthur Ballard in. So there was a mix of creatives. It was lively and people wanted to be around those characters.

"I don't quite know how Dave and I were drawn in (to that world) but I think there were no barriers to coming in. Dave was still in Manchester finishing his chemistry PHD and I had gone into remedial education. We came in thinking we would do the bistro and we would do a film club. Then you get overwhelmed."

With him, Paddy has an extract from a Guardian article written by the playwright David Hare in which he described his ideal theatre.

In the section titled 'restaurants and bars', Mr Hare wrote: "It’s an iron rule that all theatre restaurants are terrible. A rare exception was at the Liverpool Everyman in the 1970s, where the food was cheap, plentiful and delicious – and, crucially, the atmosphere was informal. The cast all ate there."

Paddy is very proud of that. He said: "The arts world had taken note of what we'd done. We came in after Merseybeat and The Beatles - they had become commercially successful throughout Europe and they were sort of evacuating. But they left behind a creative verve and we were part of that really."

Those who worked at or frequented the bistro reads like a who's who of the Liverpool arts world. As Paddy says: "We had Dave Morrissey behind the bar, Carol Anne Duffy behind the bar, Alan Peters from the Almost Blues.

"Alan Bleasdale, Willy Russell and later Jimmy McGovern all came in, it would be Roger (McGough), Adrian (Henri), Brian Patten. Photographer Don McCullin would be in after a horrific time in Vietnam. He would be looked after - as it was, nursed back to mental health, by the likes of Adrian Henri."

Among Paddy's favourite aspects of the bistro was that it became a place for creativity and collaboration. "It was a place for wordsmithing", he explains.

"That would have been straight writing, poetry, lyrics, it would be argument and debate. Anything that required mind games really. The early bistro had metal signs around the room. One of the members of Shack asked me when we were closing down if they could have a sign because they'd sat under that space and written so many songs.

"The bistro was also a space where the actors met the public. They weren't over-revered. Nobody was - the likes of Kevin Keegan could come in and he wouldn't be hassled. Plays from The Everyman were edited by the community in the bistro. There were so many people and they felt free to tear into the production.

"The productions would change over the course of a three-week run because of that forum. The public were around these discussions. There wasn't any sanctuary - people were respected but there was an interchange."

Anfield-born actress Alison Steadman, 77, worked at The Everyman in the 1970s. She has incredibly fond memories of the bistro and the role it played for the theatre.

She told the ECHO: "I used to love the bistro. When a show finished, we were straight down there for a drink.

"It was so important and I just remember loving it - the food wasn't expensive, everyone could afford it. The atmosphere was so good. My favourite thing after a show was to have a drink with friends, the audience and fellow actors."

For Rob Gutmann, now the owner of a number of pubs and bars across the city, the bistro lives long in the memory. Rob moved to Liverpool in 1985 as an 18-year-old undergraduate and immediately felt at home in Paddy and Dave's venue.

He told the ECHO: "Liverpool was such a different place then. As a student, you felt like town divided itself into sections and the social dynamic was vastly different. There were no bars, just traditional pubs. I think there were few places where students felt they could be themselves.

"The bistro was one of those - because of its cultural association with the theatre it was a bohemian enclave - an oasis in a city which didn’t have many bohemian oases. You would go there and you know you would meet people you know were like you. 'Studie' types, undergrads, people from the arts.

"Liverpool was a smaller place then. It had a social club feeling to it - you would see the same faces every week. There was a familiarity with faces and the bistro was laid out in a way that was better for socialising. The long tables meant it felt like you were always sitting next to someone where there was a high chance of striking up a conversation with other people."

For Rob, the pairing of good food and drink in such a setting was quietly revolutionary.

He added: "Their food offering was so original and I've never seen replicated. It was canteen food - you would queue up with a tray but it was great quality. The food was unique in Liverpool at the time. I would love to resurrect that food concept.

"You need that home cooking feel. It was rustic and it had the spirit of that French rustic tradition. You had an array of home made salads, pasta and it catered to a vegetarian market. Food and drink didn’t really go together then outside formal restaurants, especially in the UK. In a traditional pub, the food offering was crisps.

"To sit down and have a pint, with a beef bourguignon or pasta, that was alien. It was amazing. They had homemade hummus before the rest of the UK had heard of hummus. You'd have pate and bread, cheese and bread. These were just not things you could have with a glass of wine in the UK then.

"By 7pm it was just a great pub - not in the traditional way. More modern - it was modernist, distinct from everything else."

Offering exciting food in its informal and artsy setting, the bistro remained incredibly popular for decades. It closed in 2011 when The Everyman Theatre shut for a refurbishment. About that, Rob said: "It basically closed overnight. It was such a loss to the city."

Paddy now runs The Pen Factory, where he has recaptured aspects of the bistro, in its slight underground feel and long tables. He looks back on his time running the bistro with Dave incredibly fondly.

There aren't many pictures to be found of the bistro in its heyday - Rob believes photographs would not do it justice and Paddy thinks photography may have compromised the feel of the place. Instead, it feels rather apt that it exists mainly in hazy memories.

"I never wanted a place that was an event to come to", Paddy said. "It was about serendipity. It was an energising space. Everyone was thrown together - those things have to happen by accident and out of diversity.

"You can't design a perfect space, it happens. When there's a mix of people, it happens."

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