Months after the Richmond Row mainstay closed its doors for good, London’s beloved Prince Albert’s Diner is back.
Sort of.
The landmark diner, which closed in November after serving up Wally Burgers, milkshakes and other diner grub at the corner of Richmond and Albert streets for decades, can now be found offering some of those same items for delivery and take-out through Uber Eats.
And for those who are wondering: no, this isn’t some weeks-late April Fools’ joke.
“Like we were saying, closing up Prince Albert’s on Richmond, yeah, that was the end of an era there, but (it) doesn’t mean it’s the end of Prince Albert’s Diner,” co-owner Bill Spigos told Global News on Thursday, the first day Prince Al’s fare became available on the delivery app. Spigos and sister Betsy Gallo ran the diner on Richmond Row for 25 years.
“We’re just doing a trial thing right now. We haven’t really advertised a lot, we just want to see how it goes for right now, and then we’ll have more regular hours and more items available.”
As part of the trial run, Londoners can choose from a limited menu, with ordering, for now, available Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.
The current Uber Eats menu consists largely of Prince Al’s burgers, with grilled cheese, onion rings, poutine, chicken fingers and milkshakes also available, all prepared in the kitchen of the High Lunch Restaurant. The Dundas Street diner which neighbours H.B. Beal Secondary School is run by Spigos and Gallo’s mother, Pat Spigos, and has been in the family since 1962.
“One of the things that a lot of people might not have known is that all the burgers and a lot of the food that was prepped for the diner were made at the High Lunch. My mum, she would make the burgers and turkey and stuff for the clubhouse,” Spigos said.
Spigos says he and Gallo had planned on reopening Prince Al’s in another location in the future — “maybe a little bit smaller than the diner, even just a take-out place” — but decided against it for now.
“We’ve decided against opening up a brand new restaurant somewhere, just because the way the times are and everything, so we’re just doing a pop-up ghost kitchen here at the High Lunch just a couple of times a week to see how the response is from the public,” he said.
“Just the way things are right now … we don’t want to dive right into it just yet. We thought we’d take some baby steps and see how things go. The kitchen that we’re at, at the High Lunch … is accommodating us best as they can.”
Asked how his mother felt about sharing the space, Spigos joked about it being like, “dividing a line right down the middle. You stay on your end, we’ll stay on our end.”
“It’s a bit of a transition,” he said. “Just to change stuff when someone’s been used to doing that for how many years, having to share a space or change it. (But) it’s working out pretty good for right now.”
Gallo and Spigos closed the original Richmond Row restaurant for food orders at the end of November, and handed the keys back to landlord Rob Noel on Jan. 15. In between, staff cleaned up the space, and for a brief period in December, sold Prince Al’s merchandise, including T-shirts and hats.
For now, the online Prince Al’s will be a small family operation, Spigos says, run by him, Betsy and his niece. He notes they’ve been toying with the idea of bottling some of the diner’s sauces and drawing up more merchandise to sell.
“Right now, we’re just trying to, you know, day-by-day. Yeah, we’d like to build this back up. I don’t think it’ll be … quite as good as it was on Richmond there, but we still want to accommodate as many customers as we can because, like I said, I definitely miss the food there as well, as I’m sure a lot of other people (do),” he said.
New diner to open in old digs
In a sheer coincidence, as news emerged of Prince Albert’s limited online return, so too did news of what will be taking over its former Richmond Row home at 565 Richmond St.
In an interview on London Live with Mike Stubbs Thursday, building owner Rob Noel, who opened Prince Albert’s Diner in 1985 before selling it to Gallo and Spigos ten years later, unveiled his plan to reopen a new diner in the space, Neptune, with a soft-launch set for mid-May.
“Our concept is an early-50s vision of the future, where you’ve got that space theme, but a stylish space theme from the 50s,” Noel said.
“The food is going to be, sort of, over-the-top diner food. It’s still going to be a diner. It’s still going to have milkshakes. No more burritos, no more pierogies, that’s been done.”
Noel says he wants the new diner to tap into the fun and excitement he felt running the early Prince Al’s, which he opened fresh out of high school at 18. “I wouldn’t have been allowed to drink at my own place,” he joked of obtaining a liquor license at the time.
“A good friend of ours … DJ Melting Man, he’s thinking of doing some … deejaying. A drag queen brunch is a popular thing. Bottomless mimosas, once we get our liquor licence again. I used to have bands there once in a while, that was fun,” he said.
“Like in the old days – for me, it was a lot of fun. I’m going to make sure I have fun doing this and that I don’t stress out about it.”
Neptune is set to open with a soft launch on May 16, Noel said, adding that he’s not entirely sure whether the diner will be ready to go by then.
“We want to be ready. When we open, we’re going to have it right. I want the signage to be done, the menus, everything to be right,” he said. “We’re not really in a hurry. Joy is I’m the landlord, so we can sort of take our time and make sure we get it right.”
Management and day-to-day operation of the new restaurant will be handled by Ian Prangley, who Noel says is an equity partner in the venture.
“I don’t have the legs for it anymore,” Noel said. “He’s going to be the manager and the day-to-day, and I’m the ideas guy and the set-it-up guy. I’ll probably host Sunday brunch.”
More information about the new diner will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
Neptune will be the latest diner to occupy the main floor of 565 Richmond St.
Prior to Prince Albert’s opening in 1985 — named after Albert Street and Prince Albert, consort to Queen Victoria — the space was home to the Victoria Restaurant, and further back still, Kalmel Lunch.
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