In the Finchley Road only Irish establishments do any real business. So despite his Middle Eastern background and the fact that he is opening a café and not a pool house, Ali decides to keep the original Irish name. He paints all the fittings orange and green, hangs pictures of racehorses and registers his business name as ‘Andrew O’Connell Yusuf’. Out of respect, his brothers encourage him to hang fragments of the Qurān on the wall, so that the hybrid business will be ‘kindly looked upon’. 13 May 1973: O’Connell’s opens for business. 2 November 1974: Samad and Archie stumble upon O’Connell’s on their way home and pop in for a fry-up.
