# Atlantic Road: Peggy's Cafe + Vincent Atkins



## editor (Feb 11, 2008)

Some local questions for spods: Is Peggy's Cafe still open, what goes on at the Vincent Atkins shop and was Neon called before?


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## editor (Feb 12, 2008)

I've found out that it was called the Vincent Atkins Family Foundation House, but this is now written on the wall:

"Floris Vincent
Adassa
Blackstock
Francis
Family Foundation
New world order." 

Some more Atlantic Rd/Railton Road pics here: 
http://www.urban75.org/brixton/photos/atlantic-road-2008.html


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## pootle (Feb 12, 2008)

Peggy's Cafe is still open - always seems to be a brisk trade coming in and out at all times of the day whenever I wait for the bus near there...


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## tarannau (Feb 12, 2008)

Peggy's is still open, albeit in the same slightly unwelcoming way it has for years.  Neon is now Tangier or something, after a short lived phase as the Bar With No Name. The Bar with No Customers (and a charmless boss) would be more accurate.

Over the road Bar 628 seems to have been set up by a crack team of joiners, sprouting some bizarre wooden partitions over recent weeks. Not really doing that well bar the odd party/special occasion by the look of it. 

The Vincent Atkins is a bit of a bizarre one. There was some dispute over ownership or something a long while back, with posters and protests everywhere. Ever since then there have been  sporadic bursts of activity once in a while, legally or illegally,  with the doors remaining shut afterwards


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## editor (Feb 12, 2008)

tarannau said:


> The Vincent Atkins is a bit of a bizarre one. There was some dispute over ownership or something a long while back, with posters and protests everywhere. Ever since then there have been  sporadic bursts of activity once in a while, legally or illegally,  with the doors remaining shut afterwards


Cheers for the Atkins update. 

Can you remember what Neon was called before? I'm pretty sure they've managed to misspell Tangiers on their new sign too.


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## Pip (Feb 12, 2008)

editor said:


> Cheers for the Atkins update.
> 
> Can you remember what Neon was called before? I'm pretty sure they've managed to misspell Tangiers on their new sign too.


I'm racking my brains. Was it always a restaurant?


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## bluestreak (Feb 12, 2008)

Yeah, they spell it Tangeir.  Which gives me a giggle everytime I walk past.


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## twistedAM (Feb 12, 2008)

Enid Laundromat said:


> I'm racking my brains. Was it always a restaurant?



Got me thinking as well as although I've never been in that building in any of its guises, I used to go to Noisetoys which was next door quite a bit. I think there was a restaurant there before it went all red and Neon but before that I think (though in no way can be sure) that it was a shop.


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## tarannau (Feb 12, 2008)

I honestly can't remember, despite living on the road facing when Neon opened. I suspect a bit of a derelict clothes shop off the top of my head.


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## editor (Feb 12, 2008)

Hum studios/music shop was there before Noisetoys - it's to the left of Neon. Is the shop for people with big feet still there (Elephant something or another)?
It's weird how things change without you noticing and then you can barely remember what was there before!


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## bluestreak (Feb 12, 2008)

Yeah, the shoe shop is still there.


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## tarannau (Feb 12, 2008)

I think Elephant Feet (lovely name) has been replaced by another clothes shop


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## bluestreak (Feb 12, 2008)

It may have been, but there is definitely a fancy arty shoe place down there.


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## editor (Feb 12, 2008)

Seems a long time since Atlantic Road looked like this:


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## lang rabbie (Feb 12, 2008)

I think what became Neon was empty for a long time after the longer block of properties that it contains was done up (with Brixton Challenge money?) in the early 90s.

I have a vague idea that there was an internal audit report commissioned by Lambeth about the whole way that some parts of Atlantic Road did or didn't get refurbished and/or took for ever to complete.  IIRC it remained confidential (and may never have even gone to a committee?) because whichever organisation had been involved threatened to sue because of the implications of impropriety on their part?


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## Urban (Apr 30, 2008)

Vincent Atkins is a "reformed" character, you can hear him preaching on Choice FM Sunday mornings, he is a former "badman" and has fathered over 30 children, he usually entertains them in that shop premises.  I mean who would want 30+ kids running round their yard?


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## editor (Mar 26, 2015)

I'm writing a piece about the old Atkins/Mr Biggs/Art Noveaux shop at 77 Atlantic Road and have unearthed some, err, interesting stuff: 



> I also grew up in South London around the Brixton area.....however I had one serious family reputation behind me and trouble never really came my way to a great extent.......My cousin Vince who ran Rat securities (Ran the Brixton Front-line) He was tight with my father and although my father was a professional man in the Financial Services sector he also ran a security company in Brixton for several years.....to actually run a security company in Brixton YOU SIMPLY HAD TO HAVE SOME SORT OF CLOUT BACK IN THE DAYS!!!
> 
> I went to school in Wandsworth and my surname "ATKINS" carried weight even in the play ground.
> 
> ...



 

From Gangland Britain


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## editor (Mar 26, 2015)

Feature here:
Brixton history: the wonder of Mr Biggs Emporium, 77 Atlantic Road


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