The George & Dragon is dead. Long live the Queen Adelaide!

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There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when last month the beloved George & Dragon pub on Hackney Road joined the list of thriving queer venues forced to close by London’s soaring property market.

But just weeks later, the pub’s landlord Richard Battye has confirmed that a successor venue is to open tonight at the other end of Hackney Road: all hail the Queen Adelaide!

The Queen Adelaide is at 483 Hackney Road and will be open 8pm-1am from tonight, Friday December 18. From next week, the pub has a 3am license on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. This will kick in for Christmas Eve. The pub will be closed on December 25-27 and January 1 but open in between and from January 2.

“It’s a sequel to the George & Dragon,” Battye says. “Another old Hackney Road pub brought back.”

Devotees of the George will be relieved to hear that all its staff are on board. The old boozer’s signature fittings – including paintings, life-sized cut-out figures and an animatronic horse’s head – will be rehoused at the Adelaide too. “It’s a full cast holdover from the first series,” Battye says.

The ornate wooden back-bar is coming too, though “it doesn’t fit behind either bar so far”.

And tragically someone nicked the cut-out of Elvira at the old venue’s closing party. “Kim Wilde and Cher miss her,” Battye says. “She makes them both feel young.”

All are welcome tonight, though don’t expect too much polish. “We’ll be trying to get into the old sound system and put a playlist on,” Battye says. “Tomorrow we’re aiming to have a room like a house party – a trestle table with decks in the corner. Then we’re learning the space as we go.”

There are few set plans for the Adelaide, though some kind of daytime food and drink offer seems likely. There’s all kinds of potential in the basement, which currently retains the Images interior. “It’s loads of little rooms,” Battye says. “A lot of mirrors as well. Wipeclean sofas that turn into beds. CCTV in every room.”

Battye – who is also known as Richardette from ace alt drag troupe the LipSinkers – says he doesn’t foresee cabaret performance in the venue, though live music is a possibility.

“People using it will let us know what’s best,” he says. “I want involvement from the George & Dragon customers and staff. It’s about keeping people in there and getting them involved.”

In 2002, Battye took on a 20-year non-renewable lease at the George & Dragon, which was a shoe shop at the time. The George played a vital role in catalysing the east London queer scene, alongside other spots including the Joiners Arms up the road and the Nelson’s Head round the corner.

In January, the Joiners closed ahead of commercial redevelopment and in February the Nelson’s closed after a rent hike. Last month, a 50 per cent hike on the site’s quarterly rent did for the George as well.

“We’d have had to put in a proper kitchen for daytime business and compete with Shoreditch restaurants,” Battye says. Then in three years [the rent] would have gone up again,” and the lease would have expired a few years after that. Instead, he thought, “we could sell the lease on and find somewhere new”.

Battye signed a renewable 20-year lease on the ground floor and basement of the new site on Wednesday. The overall financial prospects are, he says, more hopeful than what would have been possible at the George, though “it is a gamble”.

The Queen Adelaide site formerly housed Max’s Bistro on its ground floor and Images lapdancing club in its basement. A decade or so back, Images regularly hosted GutterSlut, a seminal night for the east London scene in more ways than one.

The building was constructed as the Queen Adelaide pub around the 1830s, then went through various incarnations, including the Hop Picker, Keeleys and a 90s disco bar called Tantrums, which sounds fun. Battye reverted to the original name because “I like buildings to be called what they’re called”.

Following a year in which closures and threats to queer venues have far outnumbered openings, the advent of the Queen Adelaide comes as a welcome Christmas present to the capital’s queer community – comparable to last December’s opening of the Glory, which has gone on to have a storming year.

It’s a reminder that, as important as heritage and continuity are, queer energy is ultimately about people more than locations.

“The history’s important at places like the RVT and the Black Cap but other places don’t need that energy,” Battye says. “The George & Dragon was a shoe shop 13 years ago – it didn’t need ‘saving’. It’s hard to beat the owners who control the properties but keeping the community together is the main thing.”

Here’s to more good news like this in 2016. Meanwhile, here’s to the Adelaide.

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