WHO said cafe society was a relatively modern innovation?

In Bolton, an alfresco drink in the afternoon was all the rage almost 60 years ago if this photograph from our archives is anything to go by.

It may only have been two in the afternoon if the clock on the Bolton Evening News building on Mealhouse Lane was correct but that didn’t stop these three from enjoying a bit of liquid refreshment at a pavement table outside the Crown and Cushion.

We don’t have a date on the photo - the photographer just wrote “not Paris in the Spring” on the back of his picture but judging by the fashions, it is possibly from the late Fifties or early Sixties.

If you remember pavement service at the Crown and Cushion email john.anson@nqnw.co.uk.