The conversion of what is now the BT Tower to a hotel has been reported. It opened as the Post Office Tower in October 1965. The revolving restaurant on the 34th floor was not officially opened until 19th May 1966 however.
Sir Billy Butlin had secured the contract to run a ‘high end’ restaurant at the top of the tower in 1963 when construction work started.
It seems an odd choice from the perspective of 2024 but the state of British cuisine in the early 1960s was not great, something that had inspired Raymond Postgate to start the Good Food Guide a few years earlier.
The restaurant closed to the public in 1971 after a bomb went off in the toilets and closed finally in 1980. It was however hugely popular in its early years with the revolving floor giving panoramic if mostly somewhat distant views across London.
At the official opening Sir Billy Butlin and Tony Benn dined on prawn cocktail & T Bone steak. Very Sixties
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