For decades it was the only place to be for anyone looking for a uniquely York night out.
The Willow on Coney Street began as one of the area’s first Chinese restaurants before morphing into a nightspot famed for its disco and prawn crackers.
It was like nowhere else. Once you got that huge Willow stamp on your hand which gained you entry to all its sticky treasures, you knew it was going to be a good night.
For those who climbed its steep stairs on a weekly basis, it felt as immovable a part of York life as the Minster.
But then, in 2015, it was no more. At 4.20am on Sunday, 26 July, the Willow closed for good.
This week, though, it is back – at least in spirit – for one night only.
At the York Festival of Ideas on Friday 13 June, you can enjoy The Willow Experience, relocated further up Coney Street at The Basement at City Screen.
The organisers put it this way: “Re-experience the Willow through your senses and bring those memories to life.
“Touch, smell and taste the free prawn crackers (while stocks last!), listen to cheesy music, but be careful of those stairs and whatever you do, don’t touch the ceiling (if you know you know)!”
The event will let you wallow in Willow nostalgia, including a series of six short archive films that share memories from both the staff and the punters.
There are four sessions, at 6pm, 7.15pm, 8.30pm and 9.45pm. All are free but you have to book at the Festival Of Ideas website.
The Willow was run by Tommy and Soo Fong and their family for 42 years. Daughter Vicki Fong is closely involved in the 10th anniversary event. She’ll be talking about her memories, and displaying some of her famous Willow Girl and “Love It or Hate It?” artwork.
You will also be able to buy some of her popular Willow merch.
The event emerged from the StreetLife project documenting the heritage of Coney Street, led by Rachel Cowgill at the University of York.
“Virtually everybody who came in and talked to me about what the project was about said ‘you’ve got to talk about the Willow’,” Rachel told YorkMix.
As a relatively recent arrival in York this intrigued her. “The more I heard about it, the more quirky and odd it seemed to be, and all the more fascinating for that.”
So Rachel got in touch with Vicki – and The Willow Experience was born. They have also created a Willow digital archive filled with memories of the disco, which will be launched at the event next week.
Vicki’s involvement was crucial, Rachel said. “She was able to talk to her family and obviously share her own memories – sharing the perspectives of her and her sisters growing up in Coney Street in this environment, her parents, where they came from, what the struggles were for the business at various key points.
“One of the first things she said to me was everybody worked incredibly hard.
“There’s that sense of the labour that goes into creating a fantastical or magical kind of place that other people remember in those terms, but that relied on a family working their socks off for a long time.”
They had to keep reinventing the business. “In the 1970s initially, there were live musicians who were providing music in what was a very cool, high class, formal Cantonese sit down restaurant,” Rachel said.
DJs also played at the restaurant. They dropped the musicians fairly early on because they were more bother than the DJs, who came from hospital radio and did the gig to raise funds for the station.
When all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets opened “that wiped out their profits. So they had to change the formula”.
By the time of its last day in 2015, it was all about the music and dancing, with the prawn crackers the “only residue of that kind of initial restaurant”.
The music and the crackers were part of the legendary experience – and “the toilets are famous for all the reasons you wouldn’t want them to be famous!”
For years the Fong family were never sure whether their lease would be renewed. It meant they couldn’t invest in refurbishments, “so it had that kind of familiar shabbiness to it”.
Rachel says there isn’t anywhere like the Willow now. “Somewhere in the city centre staying open till the early hours, somewhere that many people, particularly in the LGBTQ community, felt was a safe place for them.
“A place where people who’d been working at the theatre or pubs or as musicians could go after hours just to unwind before they sort of set off home.”
She said people remembered Tommy Fong “being on the door almost all of the time that the club was open, come hail or shine”.
“Although his door policy was controversial, it was one of the reasons that people did feel that there was safety in the place.”
It didn’t matter if you were famous, if Tommy didn’t think you were the right fit for the Willow you weren’t going in.
“Some people, he just turned down, regardless of who they were. The regulars really enjoyed that, you know – ‘you can’t just muscle in on our space’.”
Having done all this research, does Rachel think she’d have enjoyed a night out at the Willow?
“I think I would have enjoyed it. I think I would have been quite intrigued by it, quite fascinated by it.
“It’s not really the the standard kind of ingredients for a Friday night out, is it? It’s something really quite unique.”