Syd and Sheree head off to pastures new to cook

Photo Neil Cross
Syd Little and his wife Sheree at their newly relocated Little Restaurant at The Steamer Pub, Fleetwood — Photo Neil Cross Syd Little and his wife Sheree at their newly relocated Little Restaurant at The Steamer Pub, Fleetwood

The Strawberry Gardens on Poulton Road has waved goodbye to comedian Syd Little and his wife Sheree, who provided meals at the Strawberry through their Little Restaurant for three years.

Stepping in to succeed them at the re-named Strawberry Bistro are Nick Beenham and his wife Annie, the current head chef at the Strawberry, who will be presiding over an extended eating establishment which officially opens this Friday.

Meanwhile, Syd and Sheree have moved down the road to The Steamer, on Queens Terrace, where they opened their newly re-located Little Restaurant at the weekend.

Dave Shaw, landlord of the Strawberry Gardens pub, Fleetwood.

Dave Shaw, who runs The Strawberry Gardens with wife Maureen, said: “We wanted to extend our food opening times and increase the range of meals we offer. Syd and Sheree didn’t want to be part of our expansion plans and decided to leave.

“We are currently renovating the lounge bar area and extending our dining area to include the whole of the lounge bar, this will more than double the number of covers available.

“Successful pubs these days have to provide good quality interesting food in addition to an extensive range of real and continental ales. The layout of the Strawberry Gardens with two separate bars lends itself ideally to being able to keep passionate real ale drinkers separate from diners if they wish to.”

At The Steamer, run by Ian and Gerry Northwood, Ian said: “Syd and I know each other and it turned out he wanted a place to re-locate and we needed someone to run a restaurant.”

Blackpool-born Syd, who grew up in Manchester, became a household name with Eddie Large in the 1980s with their popular Little and Large Show on BBC 1.

Syd and Sheree moved to Fleetwood 18 years ago after several years in Torquay, because they wanted to move to the Fylde coast and decided to send son Dominic to Rossall School in the port.

Syd, 73, who lives on the town’s Larkholme estate, said of the latest move: “We wanted to keep the Little Restaurant in Fleetwood because we love it here. It’s such a friendly place. We’ll be serving what we’ve always served up - pub food with a bit of the exotic on the side!”