Tales of the Urban Explorer: Busy Bee's Diner
It was 4.45 pm by the time we reached this tasty stop off café. I gazed at the front entrance and felt my cholesterol level rising by the second. One more minute and I would be floored clutching my chest, in agony.
Imagine what the 'Busy Bee's Diner' visual presence would do if it was open for bacon butties, greasy eggs, sausage cast-offs, and decaying tomatoes pulled from the outcast skips behind your local Lidl.
Yes, I am being judgemental, but I don’t think I could have stomached the ‘Busy Bee Diner’ when it was open. Its appearance was one of those oleaginous trucker stops with the lowest possible quality ingredients contained within.
Source
…'Happier days..., Busy Bee was open as recently as January 2021, the inside hasn't half deteriorated quickly'…
Parking was a no-go, with a large sign stating 'vehicles will be clamped if left here'. Knowing the law was changed in 2012 and non-cop clamping was now illegal we decided to pointedly ignore the said sign and dumped the car next to it.
Next door to 'Busy Bee's Diner' looked like the smallest decaying mansion in the world, complete with stately double pillars at the entrance point.
We headed around the back noticing the pleasant ‘fuck off if you are not a customer’ signs in more than one place.
The back of the diner was extremely overgrown, it was better to take the path of least resistance.
Access to 'Busy Bee's Diner' was hardly an issue with more broken windows than intact ones. I wasn't holding out for the finest exploration this year.
We entered via a second-floor window courtesy of some handy metal steps that were attached to the side of a building. The floor was looking ropey, but stable enough with some care.
The ‘Stretch Armstrong’ was missing but told me that kids used to live here.
Very fashionable, or are they? I didn’t take this place as a shoe shop.
We quickly found an alternative route out, that exited into the overgrown wilderness. The place looked ready to collapse here so we hurriedly backtracked to the relative stability of the front areas.
Is this where they cooked the bacon? Add a little rust to your food for some extra flavour.
Was this the room for the kid, and if so... why are there bars on the window?
A very dubious-looking bottle, with equally bad-looking liquid within.
My Whippy is that Ice Cream that is extra white, and a diversion from your general Vanilla flavour.
Marilyn is so good, you need to see her three times.
The fire surround hardly looks a good fit, but for once it's been left. I was starting to wonder if there was a healthy black market for these, considering their rarity in abandoned places.
Cooking oil for those sausages, can you imagine your extra cheap meat being fried in that oil? My lips were quivering, the edges of my mouth salivating.
This was getting too much for me; I wanted the Mega-Special and wanted it now.
Some tables were a little small, a table for one?
Plenty of ladies' shoes adorned the ‘Busy Bee's Diner’.
Pie and what… for £5.50?
It's your regular run-of-the-mill café food, at reasonable prices. Whether you can keep it down without a spat of aftermath barfing is another debate.
This area would have been crammed with tables; they seemed to have been removed.
Not paying your road tax, Mr. Sutcliffe? Tut.., the DVLA appears to have sold the debt to a collection agency. They do that here a lot.
5-star rating, should I eat my words? I suspect ‘Busy Bee's Diner’ was a casualty of the COVID nonsense and collapsed in 2020-21 from what I could see.
‘Take out only’ could have been their last chance to save the business. 30p to take a piss? No thanks, I will use the surrounding bushes.
‘Busy Bee's Diner’ appears to be an independent outlet, a diminishing sight in the UK with the chains taking over everywhere. I feel for them a little.
The toilets were a surprise. This is not a music store and I was not expecting glued vinyl all over the walls.
You can never have too much ‘Cooking Salt’. Throw it all over the food to disguise the true taste.
This is where the staff hang out, a right old cheery place, complete with a cheap rusty fire and hard plastic chairs for those cold winter months.
Plastic straws are going to be worth a fortune one day, they don’t make them anymore.
If you hadn't guessed, this was the cellar complete with extra worn stone stairs.
‘Busy Bee's Diner’ is slowly falling to bits. I can’t see anyone buying this as a business and it will likely get worse over the next few years.
Surprisingly.., Busy Bee's Diner still has their own Facebook page. It's not been removed or taken down.
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Glued vinyl in the toilets. Awesome . haha
Yeah, the highlight of the scenic views.. probably!
Damn @slobberchops friend!... You usually find places that seem to have come straight out of the head of a drunk Salvador Dalí!!!... And you have a beautiful road rat style New Beetle!!!!... What a beauty! ... This is another great post, the deterioration of that place since 2021 is interestig!... What a crazy thing that couple of columns at the entrance! :)... "the smallest decaying mansion in the world"... has ha haaa... Really!... I laughed out loud with the vinyl LP's stuck on the bathroom wall, once I saw something similar in the bathroom of the house of a friend of my father who was a painter (That friend of my father's by the way, tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head and didn't die, but the bullet stayed there in his head for years and went with him to his grave long after)... Dad always told him: You should have tried With a .38 caliber or larger, those little .22 bullets wouldn't even kill a chicken!... But that had nothing to do with me sticking Vinyl LP's on the walls! from the bathroom, obviously... Well, I already talked too much friend... Thank you very much for this post!... You are one of the best (and most satirical and hilarious) authors here!!!!... Applause!
!discovery 40
!PIZZA
Well thank you kindly! The beetle is not my image, but from their FB page, to show you what it used to look like.
That struck me as I wrote this up. I notice a lot more much later when doing the write-ups, as we are generally racing around a place in order to get to the next.
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After a year of non operational the building quickly damaged and everything was chaotic!
The heels, it was pretty though I am not sure if I could still walk if gonna wear something like that..I mean the high heels.
The hanging cabinets in the kitchen, I like the designs, simple... Haha I remembered I needed that in my house 😂.
I was about to say, hey Madonna, glad you said it's Manilyn 😂
I can't see them belonging to a waitress who happened to leave the behind?
You never know! Sometimes those hole in the wall places can have the very best food! I used to go to a bar kind of like this in the middle of nowhere. It was a total dive, but they had one of the best burgers I have ever had.
Yes, I know.., it's presumptuous of me. Let's just say I have had some poor experiences in such places.
I think I have too. It's a gamble, you just never know what you are going to get!
Man, that does look a little ropey a place to eat. Not sure you'd get anything other than a case of E-coli from Busy Bee's Diner 😂
The only greasy spoon cafe I ever remember really enjoying was Pete's Eats in Llanberis after tackling Snowdon back when I was a youth, and full of mountain climbing vigour. Seriously, that place used to pile your plate high with food, egg and chips was like 4 eggs and a mountain of chips. Last time I went 10 years ago they'd discovered portion control 😪
Busy Bee's Diner has stylish toilets tho... maybe worth the 30 pence if there was any good vinyl on the wall 😅
One such place close to me has gotten like that. They used to give out monster portions you couldn't possibly eat. Now, I can finish them. How things change?
Yeah, bleedin cost of living crisis I'm guessing.
You need a magic wand for this
That shoes could have been of a woman waitress.
Maravillosa historia, que fachadas tan bonita, puro historia deberían restaurar ese lugar, su arquitectura es maravillosa, muchos recuerdos, de seguro se llenaría. Gracias por tu post me gustó todo gracias
Damn you find all the beautiful places!!! Already craving for the next post...also i looked at Busy's FB page and craving for some sausage, some eggs and some bacon🤤🤤🤤
Anyway this must have been a really nice place when it worked covid damn it has changed the lives of so many.
Thanks for sharing, great post as usual!
I don't think I would have eaten there, if it was open. Even then, the place looked derelict..., especially the 'mini-mansion'.
I want the mega special!!! Me me me!! Lol.
Those fireplaces are worth a bit. I was looking for one in my old place and I remember not bothering because of the price
!
When I moved into the house I live in now, the previous occupants threatened to take the fire surroundings (x2), with them. I told them I would pull out if they did; they relented in the end.
I had no idea they were pricey.
You wouldn't think they would be as quite often they are just simple wooden things and even the pattern isn't that extravagant but still they are in high demand.
In an old place I bought, the guy selling replaced all the taps with utter shit ones and I had to get the lawyer in to him to get him to put them back. People can be wankers!
This was fun to watch.
Mad to see a place left to rack and ruin like that.
You'd want to be careful not to disturb things when going into these places, as I'm sure one or two may have asbestos, which is not something you want to be getting near, though I'm sure you are well aware, but said I would mention it just in case.
Wow, that's quite the staff room, Google and Facebook eat your heart out!
I am probably already contaminated, the number of these I have been in. It's an occupational hazard.
You are a braver man than me. There is a healthy urbex community in Japan—I'm friends with one of the most active members, in fact—but I can never build up the nerve to enter these places.
Anyway, enjoyed the photos. Strange as some of them were...
You don't nerve if you go as a group. Trust me.., it's not scary at all. Solo exploring is that.
I can see how doing it with a group would make it less scary. Well, maybe I'll try sometime. There are some cool places to explore in Japan. I keep trying to get my buddy to join Hive and share... but he has even stopped updating his own blog, so who knows if he'll ever get around to joining here.
Anyway, I'll follow along with your urbex adventures for now. Keep up the great work!
Not to keep the kid in, but to keep the creeps out 🙁
This post will stay with me. I know I'm not supposed to feel sad, but I do. All the dreams and hopes. The human touches (shoes!). The signs to entice (menus) and to discourage (bathroom). The failure is so recent. Maybe COVID. Maybe just life. That debt notice is a glaring piece of evidence. The wording,We know there are many reasons why someone may not pay a penalty...Talk about an understatement.
A great blog.
The number of failed business I visited grows. I can't make myself think about what happened or why, this is a common sight now.
I often find demands from utility companies, or the tax authorities wanting money. It's a familiar story, one of which I must block out my thoughts.
🙁
I always stop to look at these pictures and to try and put myself behind the eyes of the explorer. Your posts never disappoint.
Wow... can't imagine it was open in jan 2021 and looks like this now. interesting "lost?" place. looks very dangerous walking around in the house.
thanks for the post!
The back has collapsed. I do wonder what state that part was in when habitable. Things do go bad that quickly.
that's gone to hell in such a short period of time, DO NOT get me started on the scamdemic.
Have to agree this is the stuff of dreams on a road trip, got to love a greasy spoon.
I am amazed you found no HP sauce lying around.
Uck.., it's not my kind of place. I want to live a little longer!
FFS man! My bad I failed to realise you were one them posh people.
Haha the locals in Darrington, the snobbiest village in Yorkshire, many of whom are sadly my family, will be rejoicing in its closure!
It is? We only got to the see the A1(S). Just one more from 'over there' and we are back over the Pennines again.
Anthropologists from the future are going to look back at your posts and realize what a tremendous wealth of information on culture you have provided. That vintage art is excellent.
Gotta love the LPs in the toilet - but they missed a trick, if they put them in the right place it could have been a vinyl urinal !
A bit of a state but cool place to explore !
the 'L' plate by the menu wouldn't fill you with confidence. Botulism anyone, anyone oh table 3 there you go, brown sauce with your botulism sir?
Those records on the wall wrapped around is pretty cool. Never seen that. I guess they melted them partly and then formed them in that shape.
LOL, the highlight of the tour and @anidiotexplores missed them. Always look in the shitter (not directly though!).