Milk Bar

These establishments came to great prominence in the UK with the emergence of the "teenager" in the early fifties. Evolving from the ageing coffee houses like Lyons Corner House, they offered non-alcoholic beverages to the youngsters, enticing them in with vibrant decor, pseudo-American stylings, jukeboxes and often some live music - skiffle, for example. If you believe the British films of the period, Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele were never away from the places.

Long since outmoded, their function as meeting place and hang-out has been taken over by the fast-food chains and shopping malls.

Natalie Jacobs offers this further, darker, reference :-

• Milk bar refers to the bars where the teenage thugs in Anthony Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange" liked to hang out. The bars sold milk laced with various drugs.

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• A Clockwork Orange

  A cult classic, the book, and the movie (still officially banned in the UK) have inspired many bands. Heaven 17 and Korova Milkbar both took their names from the work, and the white jumpsuit and bowler hat imagery of the Droogs has also been much plundered. XTC themselves ventured into this territory too in the early days, though Andy used to decorate the white outfits with oriental characters.

appears in:

• "This Is Pop" (on White Music)

further reading:

• a A Clockwork Orange