The Royal Victoria Pavilion, Ramsgate
In the most prime imaginable bit of Ramsgate beach real estate, right on the sand, stands a handsome, turn-of-the-last-century building that had claimed for the longest amount of time, some years in neon, to be a casino. I’d never been allowed in as a kid. Then in the 90s it was leaning towards defunct, by the 00s it looked a bit haunted, then there was a fire, and wham, 2017, it turned into a Spoons. It had been trailed for a few months ahead, and I’d sworn off it; the living nightmare that was Brexit was only a few months old and Wetherspoon’s Tim Martin was one of its most gracelessly triumphant fuglemen. He could keep his (incredibly cheap) pints and his (superhumanly fast) nuggets.
