Cafe Society...

...chippies, icecream vans, pies and Welsh-Italians

Sadly Hotpots is no more - the lease came to an end and they decided not to renew.
For earlier thoughts on cafes in Aberkenfig and South Wales and the delights of Hotpots see earlier post:
 Hitchin's, brilliant breafasts and the old sweetshop

The post got a response from a descendant of Mr Moruzzi who used to run the cafe in the square when I was growing up. As said in earlier post - this was a typical Welsh/Italian caff as described in "Lime, Lemon and Sarsparilla"
Lime,lemon and sarsaparilla

[Just had a quick google and discovered the first body found washed up after the sinking of the Andora Star was a Moruzzi:
wiki SS Arandora Star

This was the ship transporting "prisoners of war"  where many British Italian men lost their lives and is featured in the book.]

Anyway - back to caffs - What I really remember Mr Moruzzi for is his ice-cream! He made it himself and it was wonderful.  And in the days before freezers in the sixties and early seventies ice-cream did seem more special. There were Lyon's Maid and Walls and the icecream vans - and that was it. These were the days when whippy ice-cream had started and it was popuar with ice-cream vans - although I do remember an ice-cream van called "Langford's" that also did nice ice-cream.

Moruzzi's was also somewhere you could buy a bar of chocolate on a Sunday evening. As said earlier - I never hung out there, but was always impressed by those that did.

I love visiting traditional Welsh/Italian (Italian/Welsh?) caffs in South Wales and here are still a few around in valleys towns and villages. And Fulgoni's restaurant in Porthcawl still make their wonderful ice-cream but whether they make it or not now depends on the weather ! In the summer you can buy it at Rest Bay as well as their restaurant and I often drag friends to Porthcawl for a Fulgoni's!

Over on an Aberkenfig Facebook discussion site, "You know you're from Aberkenfig..." all sorts of cafe memories have emerged resulting from a memory of "steamed pies":
 facebook: You know you're from Aberkenfig...

I do remember that the bottom chip shop run by Mario Crucci used to heat pies by dropping them into the chip fat. I think before microwaving the top chippie had a hot cabinet but would also do fat dunking on request.