I was born in Dalston, which is a rarity. Lots of people move here as young adults, stay a number of years and eventually settle down in either Walthamstow or Margate. Very few are from N16/E8/N1 (this town has three postcodes because fundamentally it’s not even a real area). Me? I was born in a house in Nightingale Road, just near Upper Clapton and then we moved, whereby I spent the first 7 years of my life in a council estate near Hackney Downs Station.
Throughout my life, all 37 years of it, I have been going to Argos in Dalston. As a child, I’d dream of material things, to the point where it became an obsession. I would spend hours flicking through the Argos catalogue and construct a home for myself and all the belongings I’d purchase from there to fill the space. Every couch, microwave, lampshade, bin, television was planned to the nth degree in this non-existing house I imagined. I would draw floorplans and place all these material belongings in each room. I was a strange child, completely transfixed with this thought, and certainly OCD. My desire for Argos products probably coincided with my childhood need for a new, safe space in a new home as things were pretty rough growing up. As an adult I can connect the psychological dots and see where this overbearing reliance of the sanctity of an Argos catalogue stemmed from. As a child, I just presumed I was weird and eccentric.
My mum and I would go to Argos all the time. In an age before Amazon, we’d do a lot of our shopping in person and I, the eldest boy, would often chaperone my mum whenever she’d visit the holy trinity of Ridley Road Markert, Turkish Food Centre, and Argos. Fake trainers and lamb intestines, Turkish produce, and a new Kenwood food processor, all in one round trip. Her little soldier would help her carry bags of shopping home when her shopping trolley would overspill with various meats and veg, and I’d assist her with the remainders.
We as a family moved to Chingford just before I turned 8, but after beginning my working life at age 11 by joining my dad at Mangal II on Saturdays, my relationship with Dalston’s Argos was reignited. Now my place of worship served a new function: Buying shit for the restaurant.
Things, as they often and almost always do, break down quite frequently in restaurants due to overuse. As a business, we rarely had the funds to buy top grade commercial things like a Rational Oven or a Kitchen Aid back in the day, so the policy was often to purchase household goods from Argos and use them in the restaurant until they broke down and we needed a replacement. Smart? No. Quick solution? Always. Lacking a highchair? Argos. Kettle all limescaly and run down? Argos. Need 24 forks for evening service urgently because the Kitchen Porter accidentally threw some in the food waste bin? Yep, Argos.
Through the years with the changes in hospitality standards and its needs, my reliance on Argos for business use dwindled. We now have that horrible aforementioned egg-head owned behemoth Amazon to supply lots of things, plus the usual catering companies like Nisbets and an independently-owned catering specialist in Tottenham that supplies a lot of things for us.
But I still go. I buy shit. Do I plan a whole living space around it and forensically dot out my domestic life under the watchful guise of Lord Argos? No. I am a person of taste. Though it still serves a function. I enjoy the ritual of walking from work for 3 minutes and placing my order for a fan, and then going to the desk when my number is called. I still feel that rush of excitement as the product tumbles down the conveyor belt. I still fantasise about all the mysterious goods which are hidden behind the wall, a warehouse that more resembles a treasure cove of tvs, toys, garden chairs and measuring jugs. No part of me desires such things anymore, but my inner-child cannot shake off the wonder of the Argos experience. A world of possibility, of change, of a new life, surrounded by the illusional safety of mass-produced shite made by children in underprivileged circumstances.
My mum would like some Airpods. And I, a good son, would like to buy them for her. She has zero expectations from me when it comes to things like this but when she and I were on a walk recently she expressed a desire for a pair of these as we were talking. I immediately interjected, “Mum, I’ll buy you some – my treat, I insist”. After a bit of a back and forth, she relented and gave me her blessing to receive such a gift.
I parked my car, got to work and remembered my promise, so I ventured down towards Ye Olde Faithful. As I edged toward Argos, I noticed a lack of activity by the front. I peered closer and realised the shopfront sign wasn’t there? “No, no this can’t be happening”, I thought. My nightmare realised – Argos had closed down. There’s a sign saying you can now use its services at the Sainsbury’s down the road. I didn’t want to go to Sainsbury’s to go to Argos. I wanted to go to Argos, like I always had been throughout my life.
But Argos doesn’t exist in that vein anymore. And Dalston isn’t the same Dalston. The jig was up when Blockbusters closed (I can’t even write about that one – I’ll genuinely cry), only to be replaced by a Tesco Express, which in time became a German-owned hotel/staycation work space thingie, which has since changed name and I don’t have a clue what it is they even do anymore.
The Dalston highstreet is not the same. There are really bad chain restaurants, more betting shops than ever, weird candy stores that double up as vape shops, and possibly the worst Greggs in London. Things change and we get old. The outer appearance of our towns becomes homogenised by big developers with big plans and big pockets. Councils are too concerned with parking and littering tickets (a great money collecting scheme off taxpayers whilst governments implement austerity and less funding for local councils) to put up a fight to protect each area’s personality and idiosyncrasies.
Mangal II, like its fellow Stoke Newington Road Turkish-eatery brethren, is a rarity in an industry full of restaurant groups ever-expanding their collection of spots. Was Argos ever independent? Of course not. But its existence provided the essence for locals to shop, to plan their homes, to argue with the cashier and to steal. I’ve seen it all in there, and it was a great bridge between real locals and gentrifiers who came in for the vibes. There was never a dull moment there in its prime. Security chasing people out. Employees swearing at one another. Playstations crash landing down the conveyor belt. A little boy dreaming of a new life. This was my chapel. This was my place of hope. This was where I placed all my faith. And now it’s gone (down the road, lol). I couldn’t get the Airpods that day, but I will soon be venturing into Sainsbury’s. I’ll walk 5 minutes further for my troubles. No major inconvenience there, but a sad acceptance that things change, and we all adjust accordingly without really questioning why.
And what will become of that Argos space? No doubt developers will convert it into overpriced flats with plasterboard walls. People will move in without any prior knowledge to what that building represented to a community. They’ll make Instagram reels about their daily life in Dalston, and probably avoid Gillet Square and Ridley Road Market, because it doesn’t suit the aesthetic. And they’ll be my customers, because I changed my restaurant to survive. The game is the game.