Davy's on Haymarket

[PAULR]

does any body remenber Davys bakery and restraunt on the Haymarket.I remember the silver service and the 50s atmosphere

.We went as treat from Church.

[Striver]

Paulr,

I might do... Sorry, I left Sheff years ago and never was too good with street names - where's the Haymarket? I do remermber a very "palm court" style place I think where WH Smith now is (if still there?) between the Fountain outside the town hall and the street with the Star Building on it (Ooops - now I remember - isn't that called Fargate??). Anyway on that road, which is now a pedesrian precinct, there was definately a smart cafe with wicker chairs and serving ladies with white hats. My mum took me there in the late 50s. I think it was called Davys. It was almost opposite a music shop and I used to lust after the guitars in the window.

 

Striver

[pietro]

Spot on Striver

 

Davys was on the right hand side of Fargate. walking towards the Town Hall. (see link below)

My lasting memory is the smell of roasting coffee as you walked up Fargate, trying to avoid the traffic. If I remember correctly there was another classy restaurant on the opposite side or am I thinking of Tuckwoods higher up.

 

When I worked in town in the 1970's, I used to get my sandwiches from Davys on the corner of Haymarket and Castle Street. The building is still there, now the Quicksilver amusement arcade.

 

Incidently Athur Davys very large factory was on Paternoster Row opposite where the Showroom Cinema is now. They were renowned for their meat pies and had shops all over Sheffield. I think the factory closed in the late 1970's.

 

http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/hpac.pl?_cgifunction=form&_layout=picturesheffield&keyval=sheff.id=5059

[Striver]

Thanks for that photo pietro - it really took me back. I could almost feel again the anticipation of making the Airfix Spitfire stored under my light green wicker seat whilst my mother sipped her coffee.

 

Striver

[TWA756]

Can certainly remember both those Davy's shops - and there were others around Sheffield too. The Fargate one seemed to be the main one - sold food on the ground floor - bread, bacon and sausages, all sorts of cheese, oatcakes and pikelets - really nice quality stuff - such a shame it closed - it'd do very well today if it was still there. There was a little cafe at the back of the ground floor up a few steps on a sort of platform - had wicker chairs and glass topped tables and they did teas and coffees and cakes, etc - the restaurant upstairs served full cooked meals. In the 60s it became self service instead of waitress service but was still very good - can remember them selling their own sausage, pork and tomato - if you had pork sausage you could have apple sauce with it and if you had tomato sausage you could have tomato sauce, but never the other way round for some reason! Used to love going there - I can remember going in on the last day before the shop closed completely and I was so upset I cried! Part of my childhood gone, I suppose. The Haymarket shop was nice too but it just had a waitress service restaurant upstairs - no wicker chairs.

[pauline]

i used to work at davys at haymarket and my boyfriend ,who became my hubby ,worked at davys on paternoster row.

[little malc]

Yes, Davy's was a very high class store, I worked with an ex Davy's man when I first left school in 1958, he (and me) had gone to work at another very high class deli on Glossop Rd called Sharmans, they also roasted there own coffee, fantastic memories.

[Sam Miguel]

I remeber Davy's. My memory is of watching the spit-roast chickens cooking throught he window. It used to make me drool!

[sweetdexter]

They had wonderfull custard pies

[docmel]

I had my first Saturday job at Davy's in Haymarket (the one on the corner, diagonally opposite Castle Market) - summer of 1970 - I used to work the cooked meats slicer. My friends Keith and Stephen worked there as well. They were 'behind the scenes' getting the chickens ready for the roasting machine that was in the window. Those two had an evil sense of humour......the chicken fat that came out of the roasting machine used to smell bloody awful - it was their job to check and empty it - they used to time this eveil brew through the shop just when it was at it's busiest ( after lunch) whistling innocently...Mr Shemeld (shop manager and great boss) wondered why the shop would empty so quickly.

 

Another little trick was to distract me when I was cutting ham or something on the machine - once my back was turned one of them would turn the thickness dial to its widest setting... I then had to explain to Mr Shemeld why we had half inch thick slices of prime ham.