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AY1975

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Everything posted by AY1975

  1. "V or V", a new vegetarian restaurant in Neepsend, is good for gluten-free options. https://vorvsheffield.co.uk/
  2. Does anyone know if the Wagon 1871 bistro opposite the railway station has closed down permanently? I haven't seen it open for quite some time now whenever I've gone past it. I have occasionally seen a light on in there but never any sign of life.
  3. Unfortunately there are now fewer local recycling sites than there were a few years ago. That means that I no longer have anywhere to recycle plastics other than plastic bottles anywhere within walking distance, although I do occasionally go near some of the remaining sites (less often at the moment as I'm working from home, though). It's not just plastics that ought to be recyclable but aren't always, although luckily some Co-op supermarkets now have a bin for soft plastics. I've also often wondered what the position is with metal lids of glass bottles and jars. Some people have told me that it's OK to put glass bottles and jars in your recycling bin or a bottle bank with their lids on, some people have told me that you must remove the lids but you can put them in the same bins at recycling sites as tins and cans, and some people have told me that metal lids aren't recyclable and you have to put them in with your non-recyclable waste. In Germany you can usually put metal bottle and jar lids (and aluminium foil) in with other metals (i.e. tins and cans), so if they can do that, surely so could we.
  4. What can you think of that Sheffield has that no other UK city has (or that no other city anywhere in Europe or indeed anywhere in the entire world has)?
  5. A few new vegetarian and vegan cafes and restaurants have opened in Sheffield in the last few years, such as Dina (https://www.dinavenue.com/) in Fitzalan Square (which has recently moved there from its previous location on Cambridge Street), "V or V" (https://vorvsheffield.co.uk/) and Church - Temple of Fun (https://templeof.fun/) (both quite close to each other in Neepsend). I can certainly recommend "V or V". Church - Temple of Fun is a vegan burger bar type place - great if you like that kind of food. It's also full of church artefacts, hence its name. The Blue Moon Cafe next to the cathedral and Heeley City Farm cafe are also still going strong. The Blue Moon is still only open from 11am to 4pm according to the website, though (it was open from 8am to 8pm before the pandemic). Dana in Crookes is also still open, but I think it may only be doing takeaways at present. Unfortunately the Rude Shipyard and BurgerLolz mentioned above have now closed and the Wild Leaf Cafe didn't last long I don't think. The original "Make no Bones" cafe on Chesterfield Road has also closed, but they have moved to new premises at The Old Workshop in Neepsend: https://www.makenobones.co.uk/
  6. Does anyone know what has become of La Fonda Mexican vegan restaurant on Chesterfield Road, part of the Make No Bones group of vegan food outlets? When I went past it recently the La Fonda sign seemed to have disappeared and instead what I thought had been La Fonda appeared to be called the Tramshed. The La Fonda premises did already have a way through to the Tramshed bar next door, as I believe that they were both under the same owner. The La Fonda website at https://www.lafonda.co.uk/ would appear to suggest that they are still in business.
  7. I've only just come across this thread (if you can call it a thread as no-one has replied to it until now). I hope they make it an annual event from now on: it certainly seemed quite popular especially with families with kids. At first I thought the idea was to try to visit as many of the signing on points across the city as possible, but I think the idea was just to get people to take more exercise by walking and cycling more.
  8. If they do discount CityBus and CityWide day tickets bought using the app, there'll also be the question of whether such tickets bought at the discounted price will still be valid for a year (as with all other tickets bought using the app) or only until the discount expires. If they'll still be valid for a year, then anyone in-the-know who uses CityBus and/or CityWide day tickets fairly regularly (or even only occasionally) might be tempted to buy large stocks of them at the discounted price before the discount expires.
  9. And First: a FirstDay Sheffield ticket, valid only on First buses within Sheffield, is £4.20 if bought on the bus or £4 with the First Bus app, which is normally cheaper (albeit not my much) than a CityBus or CityWide day ticket, but this offer will make the FirstDay more expensive than the more flexible CityBus and CityWide day tickets. You can also buy a CityBus or CityWide day ticket with the First Bus app. I would hope that the app will pick up the discounted prices, otherwise people who are not in-the-know will buy them at the undiscounted price without realising that they can buy them more cheaply on the bus. This offer also means that whereas you normally have to do at least three single journeys in a day for a CityBus or CityWide day ticket to pay for itself, with the discount it will in some cases be worth getting one just for an out and back journey, thus giving you the flexibility to make unplanned additional journeys on the same day. See also my thread on the First Bus app at
  10. Does anyone here use the First Bus app? With this app you can buy a "carnet", a set of ten single journey tickets at £1.80 each (so £18 for ten) which are valid for a year. You have to activate each ticket when or just before you board the bus, then hold your smartphone face up over the card reader on the ticket machine by the driver. My understanding of it is that each of these tickets is valid for one journey within the Sheffield city boundaries, regardless of what the normal fare for that journey is, so it saves you money compared to buying ordinary single tickets on the bus for any journey for which the normal fare is more than £1.80. Obviously, you can only use them on First buses so if you live in an area also served by Stagecoach or any other operator, you either have to check on the app before setting out when the next First bus is due, let any other operator's buses go if they arrive before the next First bus, or pay the full fare if another operator's bus comes first. However, it doesn't make it clear exactly where they are valid. Are they also valid for journeys across two or more of the four local authority areas in South Yorkshire, e.g. Sheffield to Doncaster on the X78? And what about journeys starting inside and finishing outside South Yorkshire (or vice versa) on First routes that continue into neighbouring counties such as Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire, e.g. Sheffield to Castleton on the 272? I've only just downloaded the app, and so far I've only used those carnet tickets for one out and back journey to and from Sheffield city centre. On my outward journey, after I held my phone over the ticket machine the ticket counted down 17 minutes until its expiry (or at least the first time I looked and noticed that it was counting down it said 17 minutes), and on the return journey it counted down 30 minutes. 17 minutes is the approximate time it takes me to get into town from home, and 30 minutes would be more than enough. I wonder whether the system knows how long it will take you to get from where you board the bus to the terminus of the route on which you are travelling and sets the length of time to the expiry of your ticket accordingly, or just randomly decides how long to give you? If it's always 30 minutes, what if you are doing a journey that takes longer than 30 minutes (e.g. Intake to Fulwood on the 120)? Ticket inspections on buses are pretty rare (it's a few years since I last saw a ticket inspector on a bus in Sheffield) but I suppose if there were an inspection and you were using a carnet ticket on the First Bus app that you had validated on that bus but that had expired in the last few minutes, you could potentially be in trouble even though you had boarded that bus with a perfectly valid ticket.
  11. I have noticed that the website of Amici & Bici Italian cafe/restaurant on Abbeydale Road (on the corner of Chippinghouse Road, in what used to be a Post Office) is currently down (presumably it has either been permanently deleted or taken down for a revamp). It says account suspended. Obviously all eating and drinking establishments have to be closed at the moment, although they can offer takeaways, but does anyone know if this means that Amici & Bici has closed permanently?
  12. Following on from the thread on bus service changes due to Covid19 at has anyone tried to claim a refund on any weekly or monthly bus or tram tickets that they bought before the Covid19 lockdown started (and before they knew it was coming) and that they are now unable to use because of the lockdown? I have a 28-day Citywide ticket that I pre-paid onto my smartcard using the machine at Sheffield Interchange for which I paid £65.60. My current ticket started on Tuesday of this week but it is unlikely that I will be able to use it. There is information on the First Group website at https://www.firstgroup.com/help-and-support/coronavirus-information about who to contact with ticket refund enquiries, but that only applies to First bus only tickets. There doesn't appear to be anything on the Stagecoach or Travel South Yorkshire websites, and the prices of CityBus and Citywide tickets are set by South Yorkshire PTE as they are valid on all operators. I would guess that my best bet might be to set up a MyTSY account and use their online MyTSY service or write to South Yorkshire PTE's Customer Liaison Team. If nothing comes of that, I might just have to grit my teeth and accept that I've wasted £65.60, but at least after the end of April I will save that much per month until the lockdown ends and I can start going to work again.
  13. There is a list of surviving paternosters (in German) at http://www.flemming-hamburg.de/patlist.htm "Liste laufender Paternoster" means list of operational paternosters. The list of countries is at the top of the page. Grossbritannien is Great Britain, Deutschland is Germany. Disused paternosters are highlighted in grey. If it says "Nicht öffentlich zugänglich" in red this means not accessible to the public. "Nur für Personal" means for staff use only. If it says "Frei zugänglich" in green this means it is freely accessible (though this could mean that the building is officially open to the public, or that public access is not officially allowed but in practice there is little or nothing to stop anyone wandering in and taking a ride), "für angemeldete Besucher zugänglich" means accessible to visitors with appointments or who have signed in. The list may not necessarily be completely up to date, though.
  14. Stagecoach has put out a consultation leaflet about proposed changes to service 50/50a/50b (Sheffield-Mosborough-Eckington-Chesterfield). They are proposing to make the service limited-stop between Sheffield Interchange and Birley Lane, Hackenthorpe from 2nd September. At the same time they plan to introduce new buses on the route. The idea is that the route will only serve certain stops as far as Hackenthorpe to provide faster journey times for passengers making journeys such as Sheffield city centre to Mosborough or Eckington. They will still observe all stops between Hackenthorpe and Chesterfield. I would guess that passengers from places like Mosborough and Eckington would benefit from shorter journey times to and from Sheffield if they are going to the city centre. However, they could be inconvenienced if they want to get to any of the stops where the 50 will no longer call - for example if they live in Mosborough and need to drop off or collect their kids at the nursery at the bottom of Hopefield Avenue, Frecheville, although that stop will presumably still be served by the 53 (Sheffield-Mansfield) and the 71 (Sheffield-Killamarsh-Chesterfield) unless they decide to do the same with those routes as well! And of course those stops will still be served by the 120. What do you think? Can you think of any other bus routes to and from Sheffield where limited-stop operation might be a good idea?
  15. Yes, probably best to watch the clip of it on Look North mentioned at the start of this thread (or one of several other YouTube clips of it) before going there so you know how to get on and off it. And remember that it's on your left as you go into the building (the ordinary lift is on the right), and you want the left-hand cabin if you're going up. There is a clip of The Gentlemen performing one of their songs on it! Don't do what they did, though: they get on it three at a time (the two of them visible in the clip, plus the person with the camera)! Obviously this is hypothetical as new paternoster installations have been illegal for many years now, but I wonder if a paternoster would have worked in a building that was, say, 50 or 100 storeys high? AFAIK the Arts Tower is the tallest building in the world with a working paternoster.
  16. Well, yes and no. I suspect that you're not officially supposed to go in there if you're not a student or member or university staff, or there on any other legitimate business (such as attending a public meeting there). In practice, though, as long as you behave yourself, look confident, and look as if you know where you're going, you can usually get away with sneaking in and taking a ride on it, especially if you go at a fairly quiet time when it's still in operation but there aren't many students or staff about (such as between 4 and 6pm on a Friday - I think it stops running at 6pm each day and the building is probably closed at weekends). Paternoster lifts are still quite common in some countries in mainland Europe, especially in Germany, but they tend to be in buildings where access is restricted. I believe that there is a department store in Berne, Switzerland, that still has one open for public use, though. Maybe the university should do tours of it, including a look behind the scenes at the engine room, for the annual heritage buildings open weekend in September. I guess the tours would have to be pre-booked and every visitor would have to be closely supervised.
  17. There's also a new vegetarian café called DANA in Crookes opening soon (later this month by the sound of it). See http://www.rmcmedia.co.uk/vibe/food-and-drink/article/Crookes-will-be-home-to-a-new-vegetarian-cafe-very-soon- and http://www.facebook.com/DanaCoffeeHouse/ About time too - I have always thought a veggie café would do well in Broomhill, Crookes or Walkley.
  18. There are also now three new vegan cafés: "Make no Bones" on Chesterfield Road, opposite Heeley Retail Park; Burger Lolz vegan burger bar on Abbeydale Road (opposite Tesco, near the junction with Sheldon Road; and the Wild Leaf Café on Edgedale Road, just off Abbeydale Road. I don't think the Wild Leaf Café has opened yet, but is due to open shortly. See https://en-gb.facebook.com/wildleafvegan/ I can also recommend the Farm Kitchen café at Heeley City Farm, the café at Airy Fairy on London Road (for a light lunch rather than a full meal), near Highfield library and post office, and the Rude Shipyard café/bookshop on Abbeydale Road, near the London Road end. The Rude Shipyard is not completely vegetarian, but most of their food is suitable. They have a choice of a meat, veggie or vegan all-day breakfast.
  19. Does anyone know if the laundrette on City Road, about halfway between Manor Top and the corner of Park Grange Road, has closed down? They also used to do dry cleaning, and I used it regularly for that. A few weeks ago I took a pair of trousers there to be dry cleaned, only to find that they were closed for refurbishment, with a sign up saying reopening mid-February. They used to open at 9am, or maybe earlier, and I often used to call there on my way to work to drop off or collect my stuff. But when I've gone past it at about 9.15am yesterday and today, the grille has still been down - maybe they don't open until 9.30 now if they have reopened? If so, does anyone know what their opening hours are now?
  20. Whenever I'm on a bus with wifi (Stagecoach or First) it usually works OK on my phone, although occasionally it says I'm connected but I can't get it to work. However, I've noticed that the newest First single decker buses, which you sometimes get on routes 20, 40 and 41, don't have First wifi, but instead they have Moovbox wifi which I can never get to work on my phone - maybe my phone provider and Moovbox (or my model of phone and Moovbox) don't like each other?
  21. I've discovered a snag with the Travelmaster smartcards, in that if you get on a bus having already got on another bus within the last 10 minutes, the card reader on the driver's ticket machine is programmed to reject your card. This is to stop people from misusing their cards by passing them on to someone else who might then try to use the same card on the same bus. It is entirely legal to make a short-hop journey immediately followed by another journey, so when you load a weekly or monthly ticket onto your card, make sure you keep the receipt and put it in your ticket wallet with your card so you can show it to the driver if the machine rejects your card. Most drivers are OK about you doing that if you tell them that you've just been on another bus, but I once had a Stagecoach driver who was adamant that my card wasn't valid. I offered to show him the receipt, but he would have none of it. I was only intending to go two stops, so I got off and walked instead. I then e-mailed a complaint to Stagecoach, and they got back to me and said the driver involved would be traced and spoken to. If the same happens to you, make sure you write to or e-mail the bus operator involved, and say where you tried to get on and at what time, and describe what the driver looked like. If possible make a note of the fleet number of the bus involved and quote that too. This is usually a 5-digit number displayed on the front and back of the bus, and sometimes inside the bus as well, at the front by the entrance door.
  22. I had a look twice last week when I was in the area, both times just after 1pm. The first time the shutters were all down. The second time the shutter in front of the door was open, but the sign said they were closed on Mondays and only open from 4 to 11 pm on all other days. So it sounds as if they have decided that it's not worth opening at lunchtimes. A pity, as I often used to go there for lunch with two of my colleagues when it was the Bohemian, and they seemed to be doing really well. I believe it was some kind of dispute between the owner and the chef that led to the demise of the Bohemian, not because they weren't doing very well. In some ways I'm surprised that the Bohemian's former lunchtime clientele haven't come back.
  23. I have noticed that Dunn's Caribbean cafe on Chesterfield Road (opposite Heeley Retail Park, in what used to be the Bohemian Cafe) has only been open very sporadically lately. It was closed today, and the shutters were down. I think they've only been there about two or three months, and I wondered if anyone knew if they had already decided to call it a day. Whenever I have seen them open, there was rarely anyone in there. If it ever does reopen, it could well be a case of use it or lose it!
  24. I've recently been in touch with Wetherspoons, and unfortunately they tell me that they have not bought up the Elm Tree after all - I guess they may have decided against it because of the state of the building. So instead it just looks set to stand empty for the forseeable future...
  25. The Platform 3/Spar premises next to the station now has a "to let" sign up, so they have now almost certainly closed down for good! As to the Culture Cafe on Glossop Road, I went in there about a couple of months ago and they told me that they are only normally open until 7pm at the moment because of staff availability. The sign still says they are open until 9pm, but they are always closed when I go past there after 7pm. If you are lucky enough to be in the area when they are open, I'd certainly recommend their falafels and baklavas. They do very good sandwiches and lentil soups too.
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