Berni Inn

Surely no tribute to the Seventies or Eighties is complete without Berni Inn? You know something was popular in those days when it gets referenced in Only Fools and Horses. Their history is readily available online - launched 1955 by the Berni brothers, sold to Whitbread in 1990 and absorbed into their Beefeater chain. What I'm concerned with here is the experience we Eighties kids enjoyed, as closely as I can possibly describe it... Picture the scene. It's the late Eighties, you've got two team points at school and as a treat, your Mum and Dad say we can all go out to the Berni Inn for our tea. Ours was just a few minutes' drive away and we'd walk in to find a few other families and one solitary businessman writing in an A4 notebook in those pre-Smartphone days. Ours had a personalised menu unique to the place as well as the Berni chain menu, for some reason. There were three starters - soup of the day, garlic bread or half a grapefruit. After a nibble of garlic bread, there was the mixed grill - steak, lamb chop and a pork sausage. No chicken or any of the stuff they've started putting in mixed grills today. Then it was ice cream time - a scoop of each of white, pink and chocolate, with lots of cream and chocolate sauce. Can't remember the conversation. There were the "cocktails", too - mixed soft drinks for the kids, in tall glasses, with long straws, plastic umbrellas and sparkly things that, from a distance, made it look as if your glass was on fire. Happy days. Now our local Berni Inn is a "family-friendly restaurant" with "carvery".