These days it’s hard to imagine never going out for a meal but in post-war Britain it was a privilege reserved for the very wealthy. That was until an Italian family named Berni, based in Bristol, revolutionised our dining out habits by opening a chain of restaurants serving decent quality food at affordable prices in pleasant surroundings.
The very first Berni Inn opened in 1956 at The Rummer in St Nicholas Market and city folk just couldn’t get enough of it. And who could blame them when you could order steak, a roll and butter and ice cream for pudding for seven shillings and sixpence (37p)?
It became the go-to place for a celebratory night out or an important date, and by the early 1960s Frank and Aldo Berni were opening up in a new location every month. This included the city's historic Llandoger Trow, with branches spreading from the Westcountry all the way to London and right across the rest of the UK.
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The popular choice of prawn cocktail starter, steak and chips main, followed by Black Forest gateau for dessert, was soon considered the height of sophistication in a country where home cooked food tended to be bland and uninspiring. If you were feeling adventurous, your meal could be preceded by a schooner of Bristol sherry, accompanied by a carafe of wine and rounded off with a coffee laced with whiskey (Irish) or brandy (French).
The Berni brothers had hit on a winning formula, but it was not entirely by luck or accident. The ambitious entrepreneurs had spent years honing their business skills and studying what worked further afield. Frank, Aldo and their brother, Marco, were born and brought up in the mountains of northern Italy, moving as young adults in the late 1920s to join their grandfather and father in South Wales, where they ran a series of “temperance bars”. Catering to a religious crowd who thought drink was the Devil, they sold no alcohol, but lured customers in with cakes, ice cream, tea, coffee and tobacco.
When their mother died, leaving them £300, Frank and Aldo moved to Exeter to open their own cafe, followed by another in Plymouth. In 1938 they unveiled their first Bristol premises at 68 Queens Road, Clifton, still with no alcohol, but with a music licence for live performances.
Disaster struck two years later when Frank and Marco were interned as enemy aliens after Italy allied with Germany during the Second World War. Aldo, who held a British passport, managed to keep the Bristol business running, although the brothers’ Exeter and Plymouth cafes were destroyed in German air raids and Queens Road was badly damaged.
Their comeback in 1943 was a bold and pivotal one when Frank and Aldo became the new owners of Hort’s in Broad Street, a prestigious, well established restaurant with an alcohol licence. They had soon expanded with branches in Gloucester and South Wales, but they still weren’t tapping into the potentially lucrative market of ordinary local people.
In 1951 brother Marco opened his own traditional Italian restaurant on the steps between Baldwin Street and St Nicholas Market - now known as Giuseppe’s and owned by a former waiter at Marco’s. Meanwhile, Frank and Aldo were continually seeking new ways to grow their business.
It was Frank’s fact-finding trip to the United States where he learned valuable lessons from the way American diners were run. He wasn’t impressed by most of the food they served, but he saw a lot of potential in their family steakhouses and the way quality, cooking and portion sizes were carefully controlled.
Countless anniversaries and achievements were marked with a Berni Inn meal as the nation enthusiastically embraced the new craze for eating out. As the Berni Inn empire developed, it was the place where you could guarantee your food would be exactly what you expected and that you’d be eating it in a clean and plush environment.
In 1970, 14 years after the first Berni Inn opened, the brothers retired as millionaires, selling their restaurant chain to Grand Metropolitan for £14.5m. Although the menu expanded a bit, after a decade a Berni meal was regarded as pretty dated and dull. More and more pubs were serving up similar meals, while people’s palates were being educated on continental holidays and more sophisticated alternatives were springing up in Bristol and beyond.
The Berni name eventually disappeared in 1995 when Whitbread bought the business and the inns became Beefeater brand pubs. Company chairman Frank had retired to Jersey, where he died in 2000, but Aldo remained a proud, larger than life, Bristolian until his death in 1997.
What are your favourite memories of meals out at a Berni Inn? Do let us know in the comments section below.
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