Reet Petite Diner, Queen Street, South Shields

I wish, I really wish I had taken pictures of this one! Then I discovered a link to a Shields Gazette article with rather nice pics attached http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/guitarist-opens-a-rock-n-roll-cafe-1-5504365#comments-area. I hope it opens. It was one of those days. You know, the kind of day when you move your birthday cards and discover a tenner with an exhortation to go and eat cake. And then you wander off to B&M and on the way you spot an icecream parlour and you think to yourself: 'I don't remember that, has that always been there?' And on the way back from B&M you remember the tenner and you think 'well I could have an icecream instead!' Ever had a day like that? I did today. So in I went, disturbing a no doubt well-earned coffee break, and ordered an icecream sundae and sat and was transported back in time. It was the red bench seating that did it. It was so reminiscent of a cafe I used to visit with my father when I was a child back in the 60s. It was so cosy to lean on the table and listen as the juke box played sounds of the era. So nostalgic when the icecream arrived to hear in my mind a soft and gentle geordie voice saying to the eight year old me 'Now take your time, don't rush.' Yes Dad, if you could come back to Shields this would suit you fine. But enough of this reminiscence! The icecream was fab! Well worth lingering over and well worth going back for more. Go soon, because once word gets out about this little gem you'll have to join a queue.