It’s a place where going for an ice cream, a soup and a sandwich or a nice cuppa is pretty much a rite of passage for any Geordie and a certain cafe is still going strong more than 60 years after it first opened its doors and well over a century after the family run business was first founded.
If you say the words Marc Toney to anyone who was born or brought up on the banks of the River Tyne or, indeed, the wider North East, chances are they will respond with a big smile. First launched way back in 1892, its a company that is like a warm hug to many generations of people in the region; whether you were taken that by your nana for a treat on a weekend, have gone in for a cup of soup on a cold winter’s day or needed a scoop or two of ice cream to cool off on a hot day, chances are you will have walked through the doors of its Grainger Street premises in Newcastle city centre, first opened in 1962, at least once in your lifetime.
And a big part of the charm of Marc Toney is the fact that, while other businesses around it have come and gone, or altered their ethos or aesthetic to ‘move with the times,’ it’s maintained a very traditional approach to everything, whether that be its menu, its service or its decor and is all the better for it.
Last year, Marc Toney’s Grainger Street cafe turned 50 and its popularity certainly shows no signs of slowing down. You can guarantee whether its people flocking for a ‘pensioners special’ or city centre workers heading there for a budget friendly lunchtime deal, you can guarantee that Marc Toney, which also has a successful branch on Percy Street, is a place that’s still always busy.
In recognition of its 62nd birthday last summer, Marc Toney put a post out on Facebook to reference other things that happened in the same year of the Grainger Street cafe opening, mentioning The Beatles’ first recording session at Abbey Road Studios, the “Big Freeze” hitting the UK and the first ever Ford Cortina rolling off the production line.
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