Deptford’s 110-year-old Manze’s Pie and Mash shop will close next year, a business that’s served the Cockney culinary staples since the reign of George V.
Owner George Mascall, descendant of the Manze family who migrated to London from Italy in the late 1800s, said he’d “miss some customers” but was “looking forward to retirement”.
The Grade-II listed shop is remarkably unchanged since 1914, retaining its trademark benches, tiling and marble tables.
George, 64, said he wouldn’t be “getting the bunting out” but admitted he’d “had enough of making pies”.
“I’m looking forward to retiring I’m not gonna lie about that,” he said.
The piemaker-in-chief will have worked at the iconic shop for 45 years when he calls time in March 2025.
The shop, founded between 1890 and 1914, belonged to his grandfather Michele ‘Michael’ Manze who migrated from the impoverished Italian town of Ravello in 1878.
After setting up an ice cream business, Manze moved into the then-lucrative pie-trade, sparking a dynasty that spread all over London.
George explained: “All those years ago, if you wanted a meal out or a takeaway out it was fish and chips or pie and mash.
“There wasn’t Indian, Chinese, Thai or whatever. Now you walk up and down the high street and every other shop is a takeaway food shop.”
At its peak in 1930, the Manze family ran thirteen pie shops across the capital with some, including in Tower Bridge and Peckham, still run by George Mascall’s distant relatives today.
Astonishingly a friend of the family, who migrated around the same time as the original Manzes, known as ‘Old George’, worked at the shop until the 80s before dying aged 94.
“He very rarely spoke actually and he mumbled a lot,” George said. “So I honestly couldn’t tell you if he had an Italian accent or not!”
George Mascall received the shop from his mother and father, Sheila and George, who recently passed away, but that wasn’t always the plan.
As a young man, he had a scholarship at the Royal College of Music as a tuba player.
“At the time there were only full-time positions for tuba players in London and each one of those players were relatively young so I thought I’d leave it a few years,” George said.
“Forty years later I’m still here making pies!”
George the place said “hadn’t changed at all” in the decades he’d worked there.
“Whereas we used to mix the dough by hand and peel the potatoes by hand we’ve got machines to help us out here now,” he said.
“As far as the shop is concerned, it really hasn’t changed that much.”
The shop’s quaint decor caught the eye of the 20th Century Society, which supported the store’s recent listing.
Historic England praised the outlet for its “characteristic shopfront and tiled interior, complete with benches, tables, terrazzo flooring, display counter and servers”.
Old-school Deptford pie and mash shop gets historical recognition
The store also hosted Trotter during filming for Only Fools and Horses spin-off Rock and Chips and Daisy Haggard in the dark comedy Back to Life.
Contrary to local rumours George and his wife Rosemary, 65, are not buying a villa in Monaco, but moving to Norfolk to be closer to two of their three children.
When we came to London as a family back in the 60s we always visited Manze’s Tower Bridge Road. I remember the sawdust on the floor. There was a saveloy seller at the Elephant as well.