During the Summer and Autumn of 1995, there was an English café on Sigurds Gate in Bergen, named The Jugglers' because Steve Thornton and I, who started it, both juggle. After the first few months Steve took on two partners, Ole and Leiv, who ran the place during the Autumn. I (a volunteer) worked in the rôle of manager until the end of October. Margareta and Marlene also worked, as volunteer bakers, when their hands were free. The café's aim was to provide good coffee, English baking and cosmopolitan main meals in a friendly setting. We baked English pies and pasties on the premises and did some very nice deals on bread-based food. Omelettes and noodle soups were always available and we sometimes did a dish of the day, if the fancy took us.
We took particular care to ensure the coffee was fresh, unlike all the places where a jug of filter coffee gets left on a hot plate for so long that it becomes undrinkable; and we had a good supplier of rather better coffee than is normally available. Tea, brus and saft were also available for those wary of addiction.
The café was open each weekday from 10 in the morning to 9 in the evening. On Saturdays and Sundays, we opened late (at 12): when we closed was variable but generally later than usual on Saturday but not on Sunday. Some days we had special events for which we stayed open later – Thursdays were live music night for a while. We didn't sell alcohol: if you wanted booze, you went across the road to our neighbours, Naboen. The café's address was Sigurds Gate 5, which has become other things since.
Navigation: near that end of Sigurds Gate which is just opposite the Spar supermarket that's just round the corner from Henrik Ibsen. Henrik's is a bar on the corner of a square in the midst of which there's a big theatre, Den National Scene. The square has, on opposite sides of it, café Opera and Finnegan's Irish pub; and off another side there's Ole Bulls plass, one side of which is the taxi rank whose lower end is right next to the big square with the blue stone in the middle of town. That, in turn, is one end of Torgalmenningen, the pedestrian area between the fish market and the big red church on the hill, Johanneskirken.
Written by Eddy.