August Newsletter
The Spanish eat late, the Germans early and the English somewhere in between; all keeping with their personalities. The Germans are Teutonic, the Spanish are hedonistic, and the English are adaptable. To prove my point, Mad Dogs has extended its dining hours on the weekends. Now, our complete menu is available until late into the evening. At the original Mad Dogs, as our clientele aged gracefully, we experienced them eating earlier. That is not the case at our smashing new venue. The patrons are younger, the staff is younger, the management is younger, I am younger, and we now rock and roll until fashionably late.
I am reminded of my grandfather, Captain Herbert Buckmaster, who returned from the Front after World War I and opened a gentlemen's club, Bucks Club, in the heart of Mayfair. Bucks stayed open much later than other London clubs because it was modeled after the American cocktail bar. Recently, I had lunch there: Liver and Bacon followed by Eton Mess and Port. You can’t get that yet at Mad Dogs, but I’m working on it.
Bucks Club membership has always consisted of bankers and military officers. Winston Churchill was a member as were a number of royals. To this day Bucks Club does not allow women members. An exception was made for the late Queen and her mother, who would pop in on their way to their dressmaker next door to check on the horse racing. Much to the annoyance of those members glued to the cricket matches.
Churchill often used Bucks to hold unofficial meetings. The story goes that Buck, who lived in a flat above the club, ventured downstairs one night during the war to find his doorman, Tulloch, still on duty.
“It's nearly midnight Tulloch, there’s a curfew, why haven't you locked up and gone home?”
“There are still some members, Sir, in one of the upstairs dining rooms.”
“Well send them home.”
“It's the Prime Minister, Sir.”
“Well give him the keys Tulloch and go home. If he or his friends can run the country, they can presumably lock the door on their way out.”
The downstairs dining room, open to lady guests, was known as The Annex. There was a narrow corridor between booths on either side, and, in his later years, Buck would often hobble through on his two sticks. If an ankle was protruding, no matter what sex, it would get a swift whack from one of the sticks.
Buck always had an eye for the ladies. His first two wives, including my grandmother Gladys Cooper, were actresses or actually chorus girls when he married them. Hence, the Club always served supper after the theater. There’s a telegram behind the hostess stand at Mad Dogs sent by Richard Burton. Burton and Taylor had supper late one night at Bucks after one of my father's plays by which time Burton was so drunk he sent the telegram in the morning. “Dear Robert and Joan. My deepest apologies. I never know how drunk I get until Elizabeth tells me the next morning.”
I am glad to report that we had very few drunks at the old Mad Dogs. People tend to behave impeccably and have done so the past 34 years. I can only remember one fight at Mad Dogs, a rather halfhearted one at that, between two middle aged lawyers in suits who rolled around on the floor for a while before Phil Esposito, the Lightning founder, who happened to be dinning at another table, separated them.
Mad Dogs. Come early or late. Not so much a pub, more a way of life.
