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The Deptford branch of Manze’s will serve its last pie and mash this month
Owner George Mascall announced his retirement last year and has now revealed that January 25 will be the last day of trading for the shop, which has been open since 1914. ‘We expect to be very busy in the lead up to our last days. Please, please, please make sure you get in pronto for your visit, we are selling out much earlier in the day than normal and I don't want you to be disappointed and miss out on your last pie and mash,’ says a statement on the Manze’s website.
The statement also revealed that no family members were keen on taking over the business. ‘We have no idea what the landlord wants to do with the building,’ they added.
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 of 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 last year. ‘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.’
In 2023 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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