Remember The Alamo

Not the American one, the one in Dubai. It's going to close on May 15th. In case you don't know, the Alamo has been a fixture in Dubai for as long as I've been here. It's a bar and restuarant in Jumeirah, at the top of the Beach Road. Before we moved to Jebel Ali we were regulars there. It was very popular with Brits, and we were quite matey with a lot of them. Over the last few years, most of these people have moved out of Jumeirah and into the new 'burbs to the West. So I guess the place has seen a steady decline in revenues, and now it's just had the ultimate decision-making incentive: the rent for the coming year is almost double what it has been previously. Ouch! So closure is the only option. I will miss it, and I will miss some of the regulars there.

Also, I read on Desert Weasel's blog of the rumoured closure of The Lodge and The Cyclone. The Cyclone I will not miss, but the Lodge was another fixture in our social thingy for the first four or five years that we were here. Then it was closed for a few years (that's another story), and then it re-opened under new management. The new version was absolutely nothing like the old one, so we never bothered going there again.

I guess this is the kind of thing that happens in a place as dynamic as Dubai. Sniff.