Kingsland Road, aka the Dalston Strip, Is Alive and Kicking Once Again

Words by Christina Dean

After its heyday in the late noughties and early 2010s, this corner of east London has got its groove back

London is a cyclical city – areas become cool, money moves in to capitalise on that popularity, said area becomes more gentrified and less exciting, after some quiet time the spark returns, and so the wheel turns. Dalston knows the rotation well. It was considered the coolest place in Britain before developers swooped in, prices shot up and people moved out. After being deemed dead for a few years, it’s swinging back into life again. 

This pocket of east London has always had an energy about it, being home to strong Caribbean, Vietnamese and Turkish communities. As people moved out of Shoreditch and up Kingsland Road in the late noughties and early 2010s, Dalston became a magnet for artists, creatives and Londoners in search of a wild night out. It was slightly chaotic, a bit rough around the edges, and, back when London shut well past midnight, somewhere that anything could happen. 

Efes Snooker Hall, which opened in 2008, soon began attracting more than snooker heads thanks to its late licence and ready supply of Red Stripe. Spotting Alexa Chung and Pixie Geldof amongst the 80s furniture and punch machine was not uncommon. After putting on queer nights in other east London venues, Dan Beaumont and Matt Tucker opened Dalston Superstore in 2009, bringing a more open, inclusive and experimental LGBTQ+ venue to the capital. Seeing Princess Juila or Charles Jeffery behind the decks in Superstore or Sink The Pink queens buying fabric on Kingsland Road to hot glue into costumes wasn’t unusual.

One sweaty basement club made way for another when Barden’s Boudoir closed in 2010 and turned into The Nest, known for its progressive DJ programme. The Alibi, which opened in late 2009, was fashioned in a similar vein – dingy Berlin basement vibes and a 4am closing time – with the free entry policy guaranteeing it was always rammed. And if you wanted a slightly more sophisticated night (but still in a basement mind) you could head to Ruby’s, opened in an old Chinese takeaway, for cocktails. 

In its heyday, the strip was the place to carry on a night well into the morning, even in Blue Tit. It was putting your bike in a black cab from central so you could keep the party going, heading north all the way from Brixton for a post-gig dance at The Nest, sitting down for a full-on Turkish feast at 3am. 

But popularity attracts money and it wasn’t long before gentrification rolled in and redefined Dalston once again – when you’ve got Zoopla calling an area the ‘ultimate hipster hotspot’, you know it’s curtains. If 2009 and 2010 were dominated by openings, it was closures that hit the headlines from the mid-10s. Dance Tunnel and Birthdays both shuttered in 2016 and then in 2018 we lost The Nest, The Alibi, Visions and Efes (which since turned into EartH). That year turned out to be truly inauspicious as Hackney Council pushed through a licensing policy that meant new venues had to operate with a midnight curfew on weekends. If that was the nail in Dalston’s coffin, the rapid sweep of new build flats and the opening of an M&S Food slammed it shut. 

There have been some stalwarts, like Superstore, Ridley Road Market Bar, Cafe OTO and The Shacklewell Arms, keeping the vibes going in Dalston throughout the fallow years but a raft of new openings has put the strip properly back on the map.

After a few years operating as a Brewdog, the old Birthdays site is back to hosting proper nights out thanks to its latest incarnation The Divine, Jonny Woo, John Sizzle and Colin Rothbart’s evolution of Haggeston gay bar The Glory. Fellow Haggerston resident A Bar With Shapes For A Name also moved further up Kingsland Road to open Warehaus (on the old Untitled site), a production space that flips into a bar with cocktails for a tenner and under. Bar Lotus, from a Chinese group that has five bars in some of the country’s major cities, has further boosted the Dalston cocktail scene with its minimalist aesthetic and Asian-influenced serves. 

Shepherd’s Bush-based record store and bar Next Door Records has recently opened a second location on Stoke Newington Road with a mega selection of vinyl and wine available by the pint, and Mexican joint Corrochio’s has just expanded, adding a new cocina and cocteleria above the original basement space. And there’s more yet to come; DIY nightclub The Cause is set to take over the Marquis N16 pub; some experienced local operators are teaming up to open Parasol on the old Nest site; and Street Feast founder Dominic Cools-Lartigue is coming back with a bigger and better food and drink hub featuring ten kitchens, seven bars and a cultural programme. 

It may be less messy and less anarchic than when the Overground had just arrived and people were discovering this new app called Instagram, but Dalston isn’t dead and the strip is back. 

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