The Coffee Shop

[Louis De Sousa]

The room how it looked in 1969, right on the entrance you had the The Juke Box followed by the Coffee Shop which occupied the area that today is the QG Lounge and QG Galley.At end of the room when walking forward was an entrance to into the 736 Club which itself today is the QG Grill Restaurant


Misc 1969 Trip - 040 by reltco, on Flickr

and how the room looks when the ship arrived in Dubai


Queens Grill Lounge by Chris Frame, on Flickr

[Peter Mugridge]

I definitely prefer the look of the final version of that room.

[Rob Lightbody]

I much prefer the original - and for one crucial reason - ALL passengers could use it - which will have made the top of the ship MUCH less confusing than it was in later years!  

I do like the palette of the Queens Grill Lounge though - I wish the (90s on) public promenades and stairwells had used that instead of the garish turquoise and horrendous green chosen for the stairs.

[Twynkle]

Images of the Coffee Shop - scroll down!

Note: travel server web site no longer has these images - link removed


(I found a very good one the other day - and can't remember where it was and whether it gotv posted...
May have been under Chairs...)

[Rod]

Food was what most people liked!

[Rod]

I refer back to my earlier post
https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,3378.msg38405.html#msg38405

Who remembers back in the day when there was a snack bar just off the 736? Cannot remember what it was called.... help me!

[Bob C.]

All I can find and recall is "The Coffee Shop"

[Rod]

Thats it! Used to love that place.

[PaulInuk]

oh those chairs harry bertroly [cant spell]they worth a bit now

[Michael Gallagher]

THE COFFEE SHOP

Original plans for QE2 did not include a Coffee Shop which subsequently appeared on Boat Deck immediately aft of the 736 Club. This space was originally to be the Teenagers’ Room and Gallery and the Photography Dark Room. Sir Basil Smallpiece insisted late during the build of QE2 on having a Coffee Shop installed. Sir Basil was convinced that this was a ‘must have’ and the facility would emulate the then current trend in American hotels. Cunard’s Managing Director, John Whitworth, and others remained unconvinced that people would want to spend money to buy coffees etc. The Coffee Shop was duly built and became known by Whitworth and the doubters as “the Chairman’s folly”.

In January 1968 the contract for the Teenagers’ Room was suspended whilst a decision regarding the conversion of the space to a Coffee Shop was made.

The introduction of a Coffee Shop would present several issues regarding manning. Accommodation for 20 female staff would be required in place of male staff. Originally there had been spare capacity for 19 female ratings on A (Three) Deck but in February 1967 this was converted to single rooms for leading catering ratings. It would be necessary to reconvert this accommodation to stewardesses and move the displaced ratings to ratings’ rooms on D (Six) Deck. This latter block would then need to be converted to rooms for single ratings. Fortunately the piping in this block had been provided for the future use of washbasins.

The shipyard indicated to Cunard that they were still prepared to carry out the crew accommodation modifications at this stage – provided a final decision on the Coffee Shop was made immediately. These amendments were calculated to cost £10,000 to £15,000.

On 31 January a meeting was held with senior Cunard management where it was agreed (and later approved by Sir Basil) that the main Coffee Shop area would be amidships and on the starboard side. This would reduce the teenagers’ area which would be now in the bay at the after end of the starboard side with the facility spread into the next bay forward. A pantry would be set up in the existing pantry / dark room area that would be capable of providing coffee shop facilities for 400 maximum with additional seating being available on the port side and coffee shop service being available in the 736 Club. The Dark Room was relocated to the First Class Gymnasium on D (Six) Deck.

A subsequent plan showing seating capacity for 132 in the main area and the forward two bays was accepted on 15 March 1968. It was also agreed that the Stefan Buzas design for the entire port side as a Gallery should be accepted, but that this space would be flexible and could be used as an adjunct to the Coffee Shop with a capacity of about 56 seats when not in use as a Gallery.

The seating position was now:

      1   Coffee Shop - 132

      2   Gallery - 56

      3   736 Club - 200

      
Total   seating- 388

This meeting on 15 March 1968 thus confirmed that the Long Gallery would be interchangeable to a Coffee Shop, the former Teenagers’ Room would be the Coffee Shop, and the after bay of the former Teenagers’ Room would be called the Juke Box.

The extent of the alterations in this area, including the increased cooking facilities and the moving of the Dark Room to Six Deck, involved much more work than was envisaged and the cost of these various alterations was now considered to be £20,000 – £25,000.

[Alex Tarry]

I love the original decor of the QE2 - to me it started to become too "hotel generic" towards the end...I recall the original plans for Dubai had some words about restoring the original look, heaven knows what that meant though! 

[riskygizmo]

20,000 to 25,000 of Her Majesty's pounds for a coffee shop? You could get a very nice house for 5 grand in 1968. So how much would boiler no. 4 have set them back?

[Michael Gallagher]

It doesn't answer your question directly Riskygizmo but I submitted this some time ago....

The original specification called for stern thrusters too - which would have helped. However, Cunard were shocked when the three tenders were in at the price the yards were quoting. The cheapest, John Browns, was still more than Cunard could afford so in a period of three weeks from tender receipt to contract signing Dan Wallace and Tom Kameen (the men who effectively gave us QE2) deleted and altered a great many things and shaved £1.5 million from the build price. Some of the key things (and the £ savings) were:

•   Stern anchor.
•   The sliding roof on the Sports Deck. £27,300
•   A set of stabilizers (four fins instead of six). £43,420
•   One auto tensioning winch. £8,000   
•   Cathodic Protection. £6,600
•   Two aft cranes. £32,000
•   The aft MacGregor hatch and trunk. £27,000
•   The aft thrust units. £46,000
•   Mental Ward and Mortuary. £1,600
•   Verandah Grill from funnel base. £35,000
•   Fur Store. £2,000
•   Breakwater. £1,000
•   Six lifts. £40,500
•   Two gangway handling winches. £   1,700
•   Special cruising gangways. £500
•   Twin boiler casings. £3,500
•   Insulation in the way of the steam pipe passage.

Major Alterations:

•   The cruise launches were modified.
•   The forward cranes to be Stothert & Pitt.
•   The boat davits to be steel in lieu of aluminium. £69,000
•   Omit the painting of aluminium behind the Linings. £12,000
•   Enamel beds for crew instead of aluminium. £10,000
•   The relocation of insulated cargo from aft to forward. £1,000
•   The Boiler Seatings were reduced in number.

The stern anchor and morturary would be put back into the ship.

The reduction of the boilers would effectively cripple the ship until her re-engining as the system lost its redundancy.

But if the above was not done, perhaps the ship would not have been built!

[Alan.C.]

Six stabilizers seems rather excessive, has any ship ever had that amount before?

[Steve Herra]

Enjoy...

And can anyone guess roughly which month these were taken?

Does anyone have photos of the Coffee Shop on Boat Deck?