There aren’t many places in Cardiff for single women, where they can feel comfortable sitting alone, having a drink or bite to eat.
In the hotel bars, you can easily be mistaken for a hooker (an aging one, at that, in my case).
In the trendy bars in town, you tend to get stared at before someone accidentally pours a pint of Stella down your front.
If you join a Singles club, you will only end up meeting a bloke looking for a babysitter for his kids, while he goes off down the pub with his mates (or maybe I’ve just been unlucky).
The Cameo Club in Pontcanna Street is the exception. I’m not saying I have never had a drink spilt down my front there, but that has usually been when my own arm has had difficulty co-ordinating glass to mouth after a Wales win.
For me, there is nowhere like it in Cardiff. I am the world’s fussiest eater, and the Club now has their food exactly right; they do the best Sunday roast in the City. They have expanded their wine list, and the expansion into the room next door that used to be Annabella’s has created two very distinct spaces, in which you can enjoy a bar experience, or a restaurant one, and easily move between the two when you spot friends.
To be honest, I had nothing but disappointing food and rude service from the previous establishment, so for me, Guantanemo Bay would have been an improvement on Annabella’s. It’s safe to say, therefore, that the Cameo’s improvements are easily a million times better.
It’s a different place at different times throughout the day, and I love them all. Tea in the morning, when I’m doing a bit of food shopping. A light lunch, followed by a few hours’ work on my laptop in the afternoon (more than one person calls the Cameo my office). The early evening crowd brings in a lot of people on their own, and we mingle easily, without there ever being a hint of an uncomfortable pick-up about it (a shame, actually, when the cricketers are in). Dinner is relaxed, and the late night crowd have been tamed from the days of old – or died from the ravages of earlier Cameo years.
Upstairs, the stunning and interesting décor of the re-fitted lounge, provides a haven that can be hired for private parties; and presiding over all is the new manager Wesley, whose energy and enthusiasm have brought a whole new vibrancy to the place - and he wears a suit! That’s right! A suit! The only one of those you saw in the old days was somebody’s birthday suit – again, usually after a Welsh win (or was that me again?).
It’s hard to get any new venture off the ground these days, but it’s even harder to take something so established in people’s minds as a late-night drinking hole and transform it.
You need to bring in new people, without alienating the old crowd, and the Cameo’s admission of non-members before 7pm has been a major contributory factor in changing the perception of the Club in many people’s minds. It doesn’t matter if you are a businessman/woman enjoying an early end to the day, or someone with small children and a pushchair, it’s a relaxed environment for anyone to enjoy.
I practically live in the Cameo each time I return to Cardiff. I’m so much part of the furniture, I have grown two extra legs. There is nowhere else like it, and as an older woman (nowhere near over the hill yet, but I can see the horizon), it’s still my first choice of venue for everything I need on a night out – apart from the men.
Lovely as many of them are, there are now far too many young, nubile females ahead of people like me in the queue. If it’s a bloke I want, I’m going to have to ask the Club for a Cougar lounge, where older woman can schmooze with younger men to their hearts’ content.
Now that’s something I’d like to see on the menu.
TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT THE CAMEO
1. Sunday roast. Great food, great value, and a time when people eating alone are made to feel part of the family, not a spare part in other families’ days out.
2. The new Montelpuciano red wine. Easily the best they have ever had.
3. Lovely staff, who always make me feel welcome.
4. Bumping into young sportsmen who are great eye candy, day or night (you know you are – and please don’t sue me; I was only looking).
5. Great rugby days, watching games on the TVs with my mates, avoiding the hell that town has now turned into on these occasions.
6. Sitting on a bar stool, reading the papers, chatting to newcomers and also old friends who come to the bar.
7. The newly refurbished toilets – even if I do need a stepladder to be able to see my face in the mirror (new members are clearly taller than the older generation, or maybe I’m just shrinking).
8. The knowledge that I will always find someone to talk to – and also be left alone if I want to read or work.
9. The great new kitchen, and the fact that the place is always clean.
10. Did I mention the eye candy . . . ?
The Cameo Club
3 & 5 Pontcanna Street
Cardiff CF11 9HQ
Tel: 029 2022 0466
e-mail: info@cameoclub.co.uk
www.cameoclub.co.uk
