Business is booming and a community is thriving on a once quiet street
Taj on Lodge Lane(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A small corner of Toxteth has been reshaped by Middle Eastern businesses. A short walk along Lodge Lane feels like a journey to another part of the world, where family recipes handed down through generations are on restaurant menus alongside halal grocers, African markets and old-fashioned pubs.
Lodge Lane is brimming with historical buildings, including the once popular library that now sits dormant, the headquarters of Merseyside Yemeni Community Association, and the landmark Boundary pub dating back to 1902.
The Boundary is your first welcome to Lodge Lane, nestled on the corner of Smithdown Road. The grand interiors consist of red brick and stone branding from Cains Brewery, with a mosaic floor and two rooms for drinking and dancing once the evening hits and live DJ shows their face.
Branded a “proper family style pub” by the bartender, who was too shy to give me her name during my visit. She added: “every-one is welcome no matter who you are or where you’re from.” The warm welcome of the pub is just the beginning of a street famous for its tight community.
Inside The Boundary pub(Image: Liverpool Echo)
At the end of Lodge Lane is a cluster of restaurants showcasing cuisines from across the world, most strikingly the glaringly obvious French Tacos business, while The Coffee Lodge serves traditional English breakfasts alongside Arabic morning dishes. Among the thriving local businesses is Sheba Restaurant, which adds to the area’s rich diversity of international flavours.
Staff member Ahmed Chipo told the ECHO: “We have people here from all over the world from places like Dubai, Qatar and Yemen. One of our best dishes is lamb mandi, which can be very difficult to find elsewhere. We welcome a lot of white people from students and members of the Yemeni community to people just stopping by.
“Sometimes the entire restaurant will be filled with tables pushed into one long setting where everyone shares a meal. We have a really strong community here. We’re busy because the surrounding area has so much to offer and we all benefit by sharing in each other’s success.”
Ahmed Chipo from Sheba restaurant on Lodge Lane(Image: christopher megrath)
Dozens of small shops populate Lodge Lane, from the abundance of mini marts and booming Manchester Super Store to halal meat grocers. The largest of its kind in the area is Umrah, a massive supermarket offering multiculturalism and international meats, fish, frozen foods, home goods and anything else you can imagine.
The entrance is tucked away at the side, past the boxing glove artwork of the famous golden gloves boxing gym, which dates back to 1947.
Fresh food ready to be bagged sits near the front aisles, including trozi pickles and green peppers, sat beneath a massive selection of Al barakah Dates. I’d be lying if I said I knew most of the brands because I didn’t. Even the big names were a rarity.
The butchers at the back is halal, with a big green sign saying so. There are lamb chops, chicken, minced meats and lamb liver, along with a fantastic array of frozen fish and even a bakery selection filled with colourful deserts and flaky favourites. You could lose yourself easily in the array of unique finds and leave with a basket filled to the brim.
Umrah’s bakery(Image: Christopher Megrath)
Lodge Lane‘s container village helped lots of start-up businesses transform from a daydream into a thriving shop, café or restaurant. Many of them have cited the excellent location as the reason their business can work.
Business owner Mohammed Younis is one of the dozen vendors who started his brand with his mother’s recipes, £5,000 and a dream. He now owns a thriving vegan food venue, Falafel Chef, which he says has been successful thanks to the huge variety of customers the community brings.
The business owner told the ECHO: “I’m from Palestine so I have tried to do the same authentic food here that I had back home, I got recipes from my mum, and have made some amendments to make it work here. But it works.
“I bought the unit in November 2022, then I was online on Deliveroo and Uber by March 2023. It’s my first business in the UK. It took off, I have been working 12, 13 and 14 hours a day, every day, seven days a week, so I haven’t had that many holidays. but it has been worth it. When you see the reviews it’s amazing, every day I open the reviews and it just makes my morning, it makes it worth it.”
Nasser Anan, owner of The Yemeni Kitchen on Lodge Lane(Image: Liverpool Echo)
One of Lodge Lane’s biggest restaurants, TAJ, is preparing to make the move to Berry Street in the city centre. The Syrian food takeaway has already enjoyed success on Lark Lane, offering an array of dishes like shawarma platters to more traditional plates like jubna (cheese-based dishes) and lahm bi ajeen (Lebanese meat pies).
Across the street is The Yemeni Kitchen, spearheaded by owner Nasser Anan who moved from Yemen to Liverpool in 2002. He told the ECHO: “When I arrived, there weren’t that many shops in L8. Now it’s a different story. Lots of cafes, restaurants, shops open until 1, 2 o’clock in the morning.
“We love our food. It’s a big, big part of our culture. For weddings and things like that, we have huge feasts – we might have 20 roasted lambs cooked for the party. We enjoy eating together.”
Another warming success story is that of Zezu, who also believes the location has everything to do with his success. Ali Khan started the business with his brother-in-law Fad Hassan, who are both of Pakistani heritage, to create a food experience that offered customers something that was not the normal burger and wraps, but a new flavour and taste.
Rehan serving food from Zezu in the container village(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Ali told the ECHO: “We did a bit of market research and found Chinese food is quite popular within Liverpool. We thought, OK, how can we make it a bit different? Chinese food (not just in Pakistan) but in Asian culture is quite popular and our food is a crossover between India and China. We use Chinese ingredients and then give it our own Indian touch, so the concept is Indo-Chinese”.
Fad said: “When I came to the UK I tasted a lot of food here, I could see there are many good restaurants that sold very nice food. But, everything is the same, everyone is doing burgers, and wraps and all that.”
Although Ali and Fad are of Pakistani heritage, they chose to combine Indian and Chinese food given both are popular. “The food we do is different, and quite unique. A lot of people have come to us via word of mouth and people who have not been here before, we can offer ‘try it before you buy it’.
“We find being here has helped because there are always so many people walking around here and coming here, it’s so nice. There are always people in the area.”
MZNJ is a little different to the other businesses in the Lodge Lane container village(Image: Megan Banner)
While food businesses dominate Lodge Lane, there’s also a secret haven for shopping thanks to perfume business MZNJ. Zak, who works in MZNJ, said: “This is a perfume bar but it looks a lot like whiskey, we have lots of fragrances.
“We specialise in what you like and make them personal for you and we make them all here. We chose this location because there is a lot of business that brings a lot of traffic around here, a lot of cultural people, a lot of people from different backgrounds – it’s helped us be successful.”
Lodge Lane is unrecognizable from its image two decades ago, thanks to the Middle Eastern community now populating its streets. International restaurants are flourishing with customers pouring out of their doors, bespoke grocers and supermarkets have everything the locals needs to feel at home, and the blossoming success stories from the container village and beyond showcase just how much the once quiet street has been transformed..