Forest Gate’s First Mod Coffee Bar and Club
The Jive Dive opened in 1960 at 193 Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, in a house next to the Royal Mail sorting office that had previously been the Earlham Grove Dance Academy. Run by Kenny Johnson, it began as a coffee bar before securing an alcohol licence. The ground floor was converted into a bar and the basement into a dance hall, decorated with bamboo partitions, posters and plants to give it a distinctive modern feel. Attracting large crowds of fashion-conscious East End mods, the Jive Dive became a meeting point for drinking and dancing, with a reputation for lively but trouble-free nights. Eddie Johnson later described it as filling “a real need in young people” at the time. Complaints from neighbours about the noise and crowds eventually forced its closure, but the Jive Dive set the stage for Kenny’s later and longer-running ventures at the Lotus Club and the Big Beat Club.