The Ace Cafe

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The Ace Cafe, as it looked in 2004

The Ace Cafe is an old transport café in London, England. It originally opened in 1938 and was designed to accommodate the traffic travelling on the then new North Circular Road. Because the cafe was open 24 hours a day it soon started to attract motorcyclists. It became popular with Rockers in the 1950/60s and it was a local hangout for the petrol heads. Today it has been refurbished and Rockers and motorcyclists from all over the world go to the Ace to share stories, fix bikes and see the legend itself.

The cafe was rebuilt in 1949 after being destroyed in a World War II air raid. This happened because the building is very close to the Willesden Railway Marshalling Yard, the actual target of the raid.

A number of events occurred in the Post-war environment to make the Ace Cafe a success, the emergence of the Teenager; increases in road traffic; and the British motorcycle industry being at its peak. Many young people started to meet at the cafe with their motorcycles and listen to Rock'n'Roll music.

The cafe established itself as a cultural hub for rockers, and many bands and motorcycle enthusiast groups formed there.

The original cafe closed in 1969; one usage before it re-opened was as a tyre sales and fitting shop, which did, at least for some time, sell and fit motorcycle tyres. The Ace Cafe was refurbished and reopened in 2001, but no longer as a 24-hour restaurant. The cafe is now also famous for its various classic and sports car gatherings. It is currently used as the base for the Channel 5 TV programme Fifth Gear, and has in the past been used for ITV's Used Car Roadshow.

The Ace Cafe was a filming location of the 1964 film Leather Boys.

An attempt was made in the 80s and 90s to re-create the Ace Cafe some miles away on the Western Avenue but this was not in the right place and so was not totally successful.