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Another classic pie and mash shop bites the dust.
The Deptford branch of the M Manze’s chain will be closing its doors for good in March 2025, as owner George Mascall announces his retirement.
Other recent pie and mash closures include Walthamstow’s L Manze’s, while Islington’s M Manze’s closed in 2017. Two London branches of M Manze’s remain; Peckham and Tower Bridge Road – as well as an outpost in Sutton.
The Tower Bridge Road branch is the oldest eel and pie shop in London, originally opened by pie shop pro Robert Cooke in 1891 and taken over by his son-in-law Michele Manze in 1902. It was the first 14 stores to bear the Manze’s name, most of which are now closed. The Manze family originally hailed from Ravello on the Amalfi coast in southern Italy.
‘Maybe the next owner will keep it as a pie and mash shop but I certainly won’t be involved,’ George Mascall told Southwark News. ‘A lot of customers will be upset and they reckon they’ll have a tear in my eye when the shutters go down... I’m certainly looking forward to retirement.’
At the end of last year the Deptford store was granted Grade II listed status by Historic England, with its tiled interior, wooden benches, and terrazzo flooring praised for being a ‘rare and well-preserved eel, pie and mash shop of the early C20, representing a distinct vernacular cuisine that formed a staple of working-class life in London’.
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