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July 2005

Journalists may have reputations for propping up bars, but Adam Christie found two giving the expression new meaning.


Bar owners offer cheery welcome

ON TELEVISION, Boston’s most famous bar was run by a former baseball star and his intellectually-challenged coach. The regular after-work drinkers included a postman and a psychologist. Down those Massachussets stairs, they said 'Cheers' and we knew their names.

Many of those walking down into The Old Steps bar on York Place, just across Wellington Street from Yorkshire Post newspapers, already know proprietors and Yorkshire Evening Post sub-editors Dave – “Steady” – Stead (60) and Nigel McDermid (47).

The two already knew the bar as a long-time watering hole for YEP journalists, so when it came onto the market last November, they decided to take it over.

Former champion boxer Derek Roche, the subject of a book by Nigel, joined them as a third partner. Derek may be a colourful character, having become the only Irishman to win a Lonsdale belt outright and working as a club doorman in Leeds, but Steady and Nigel are more likely to be found down The Old Steps. After three months dealing with the formalities, they finally took possession of the bar at the end of February. “We didn’t know whether we’d actually got our licence until 4.30 that afternoon,” recalls Steady. “And we knew the bar had been booked for a party the following day. We didn’t realise until they walked in that it was people from the IT department at the Yorkshire Post.” While they may be relatively new to running a bar, Steady and Nigel are old hands on subs’ desks. Steady has now been at the YEP for nearly 15 years. He spent 15 years before that working for the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford, having begun, he says, his career in the days of hot metal.

CHEERS: Dave Stead and Nigel McDermid outside The Old Steps Bar in Leeds. Photo: © 2005 Adam Christie

Nigel has worked for the YEP for most of the last 20 years, since leaving the Pudsey News. Although he did take a short break to work in PR at Leeds University, he returned to the subs’ desk before long.

While long-known as a journalists’ bar, business is already growing as lawyers and others working nearby make their way down the stairs, especially at lunchtimes and after work.

The bar’s food may be helping. Nigel’s nephew has come from France where he trained as a chef to run the kitchen and improve his English.

After qualifying, Raphael Ganet (20), who has already become known as “Raff”, worked near Lyons before heading to Leeds.

Affordable
Change is taking place, but carefully and slowly. From recent years as a wine and tapas bar, a distinct French influence is appearing as Raff adds salads and snacks to the menu that are both tasty and affordable for those on infamously poor newspaper salaries.

Nigel and Steady have decided that the free house should deal exclusively with Wakefield-based brewers and suppliers HB Clarke.

“Their Classic Blonde brew, which we’ll be pulling, has sold out already in the House of Commons’ Strangers’ Bar,” says Nigel, “after new Pontefract MP Ed Balls started asking for it.”

Other Yorkshire real ales, including Masham’s Old Sheep and Landlord bitter from Timothy Taylor of Keighley, are already on tap.

The Old Steps has been open for more than 30 years and, says Steady, is one of the longest surviving bars in the area.

So far, the bar is only open until 7pm on Mondays and Tuesdays and only opens for private functions on Sundays, but with LS1 having become one of Yorkshire’s most coveted postcodes, and scores more city apartments in the old Post Office headquarters building across Wellington Street soon to be occupied, The Old Steps could also find its niche as a neighbourhood bar for nearby residents.

After their first few months in the licensed trade, neither Nigel nor Steady is regretting the decision to take on the The Old Steps, even though, Nigel admits, he had never worked behind a bar before.

“Now we’re into this venture, we’re looking to the long term,” he says. “You have to want to do something like this, and, so far, we’re glad we’ve done it.”

In the meantime, they’ll be judging success by making new friends and remembering more names.