Flat Foot Sam’s bar is apparently making a return to Hoylake.
According to this FaceBook page (where the above photo came from) Jack Rabbit Slims bar is currently being renovated and is to reopen as Flat Foot Sam’s next month.
Back in its heyday, Flat Foots (on the corner of Market Street and King’s Gap) was a very popular bar that attracted people from near and far several nights of the week. In the mid 90’s as it lost some of its popularity it was revamped and became The Orange Grove. I can’t remember when it called last orders for the final time?
There’s a (not very exciting) video taken on Christmas Eve 1990 that’s been posted on FaceBook before but if you’ve not seen it and you used to go to Flat Foots then you might recognise a few faces. Lives have changed of course over the course of nearly 25 years and I think one person in the video has since sadly passed away.
Will people who used to go over two decades ago still fancy going today? Or will they be sat at home watching Strictly in their onesies while a younger crowd savour the remixed Flat Foot Sam’s experience? Time will tell. The original building by the way, once The Stanley Hotel, is now a block of retirement flats.
How are the pubs, bars and restaurants in Hoylake doing at the moment? Are they busy, quiet, ticking along? Have your say in the comments below.
It was still the Stanley Hotel when I moved to Moreton in 1982. I did go in it when it was the Stanley Hotel, in fact I had my first post-18 drink there, but never went to it as either Flat Foot Sam’s or The Orange Grove. I seem to remember that a lot of people were unhappy when the Stanley Hotel closed, for example I think the bowling green was scrapped (did it become a car park?). Also wasn’t Jack Rabbit Slims origianlly called The Firehouse, due to the former use of the building? Although I don’t think it was converted into a bar until some years after the Fire Station closed. On that subject, I hope as many people as possible will attend the meeting about the closure of West Kirby Fire Station, which replaced the Hoylake one in the mid-70s, being held at Hoylake Parade Community Centre in Hoyle Road, from 6.00pm to 7.00pm on the 30th, October.
Orange Grove closed in approx 2000
Drove past new FFS last night,,,,brought back so many memories of a miss spent youth,always trying to convince my kids that I did indeed have one
The old Flat Foots was a great place. I was in there a lot in the 1980’s.. I visited the new place a few weeks after it opened and I was very disappointed.. It has no connection whatsoever with the original. Thought it would be retro 80’s, but there wasn’t even a hint of that fabulous decade…..Rubbish!