The first mention of the Two Puddings as a Stratford pub seem to date from the 1890s. It was from the beginning styled as Ye Olde Two Puddings though wasn’t so ‘olde’
During the twentieth century, the Two Puddings became a notorious pub, known locally as the Butcher’s Shop on account of the amount of blood spilt. Some people would turn up at the pub for a Saturday night punch up rather than for a good time and a pint.
From 1962 until its closure in 2000, Eddie Johnson was landlord of the Watney Mann’s Two Puddings and he started to drastically change its reputation.
Eddie and wife Shirley were rock ’n’ roll fans and already from 1958 onwards had, along with Eddie’s brother Kenny, been organised gig nights known as The Big Beat Club and The Devil’s Kitchen where in time The Who and The Kinks performed. The gig nights, at first mobile in various places, became established at the Two Puddings but the licensee in 1962 fell foul of the police.
Kenny and Eddie only bought the lease of the Two Puddings because they were wary of losing The Devil’s Kitchen in the legal situation that was developing with the landlord. Kenny had an outstanding police conviction so Eddie started to run the pub. Kenny went on to become active organising gigs throughout London and many a band owed their start to him.
Inside the Two Puddings pub, downstairs
The Two Puddings – a.k.a. The Puddings or simply The Pud – became a prime venue with the UK’s first disco upstairs, later more a nightclub. Coming along to the pub in the 1960s and beyond were television personalities, actors, writers, champion boxers, musicians, gangsters and footballers. Harry Redknapp met his wife Sandra there in 1963 and David Essex made his performing debut at the Puddings. Alongside the music innovations at the club, Johnson introduced burly bouncers to control entry.
Part of the draw of the venue, was that strict licencing laws applied downstairs in the pub and at traditional Friday closing time at 11pm, punters could move up to the nightclub. It was the only such place in East London — people would come from all over. It would stay open late – very late.
Despite all the excitement inside, the Two Puddings building could be described as ‘drab’ – classic London half-moon windows and dark tiles. Next door to the pub was in an employment agency called ”Girl Friday” during the 1960s, which had stories of its own.
At the end of the 1990s, changes in the law required breweries to sell off pubs, including the Two Puddings. There was a court case that saw Eddie Johnson thrown out as landlord. Because of his four decades in charge, Eddie Johnson was then London’s longest serving licensee. In 2012 he wrote a book about his experiences called ’Tales from the Two Puddings’. It was later made into a documentary.
Eddie died in June 2018. Eddie and Shirley’s son Matt grew up at the Puddings and became the lead singer of eighties band ’The The’.
After closure as a pub, the Two Puddings building next became ‘Latin 1/4’ in 2004, ‘Swagga’ in 2012 and ’The Refreshment Rooms’, a bar/kitchen. Indeed the pub had been frequently listed as “refreshment rooms” or “restaurant” in Post Office directories before the 1930s, so it may have been more of a dining house than a drinking venue in the interwar period.
