Picture the scene: it’s 1am, you’ve just finished a bar shift and you walk into The Crobar on Soho’s Manette Street. The bar is five-people deep, Black Sabbath are pumping out of the jukebox, and cans of Red Stripe are being grabbed out of a bin. “Ah, these are my people,” Simo Simpson says, sighing at the memory of a similar scene at his favourite post-work haunt.
Sadly, The Crobar’s closure (along with other iconic London dive bars) marked a sign of the times for late-night hangouts which were left behind by hiked up rent, lack of government support and impossible margins. It marked a huge blow for the people who had become part of a hallowed community of likeminded people there over its near-20 years of operation.
