“This shop has been 30 years in London,” says Tariq at the counter of Brix Chicken in Brixton. Outside, the pubs are closing and the night is growing unruly. A row has broken out in the queue for the nightclub next door. “Easy man, easy man,” a male voice carries in from the street. Inside, Tariq is extolling the Spicy Wing Meal Deal, and a minicab driver squeezes ketchup over a portion of chips.
Brix is one of many chicken shops around this part of London, open long into the night, offering barbecue chicken, peri peri sauce, chips, wraps, cans of Pepsi and ginger beer. It is a diverse crowd here this evening – regulars and revellers mingle, half-oblivious to one another. There is Ever Clarke, 49, a poet from south London, who is “just passing through, raving basically,” and Oswald, a long-term Brixton resident who tells of how he gave up a life of crime to train as a chef and delights in making tandoori fish and “proper stock”.
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