Rossa, Rich & Paulo from Great Little Places

If you’re on Facebook and in London then chances are you’ve noticed I know this great little place in London.

Its membership is rocketing towards six figures as people rush to share their personal finds and unusual things to do.

At Kaskado we love our great little places too, so we naturally snapped up the chance to speak to the men behind the movement…

Who are you, how old are you and what do you do? Where do you all live in London?
We are three guys who work in advertising, 27 and 28. Two of us live East because we’re cool, one lives West because he thinks he’s classy.

Two have good haircuts one has just let his go. We met about two years ago, and found that getting the most out of London was a big common interest and went from there.

Describe the moment the idea for the page came to you – where were you and what was the conversation?
The light came on about a year and a half ago. One of us had just been dumped whilst on a holiday to Brazil and wanted to get back out on the dating scene again in London. The eureka came when he was out with a female friend at a spoken word/music night organized by a great London collective called Poejazzi. It was an amazing night in Volupte. And he thought to himself that night that if he took a girl out on a date night like that one, it would be the most amazing and memorable date.

Something completely different and original. No more dull dating. So the idea for putting together a guide to unexpected dating in London arose. And the team formed pretty quickly from then on in. Our common bond is our love of serious nonsense and London randomness.

Are people nowadays looking for something different, for the sense of authenticity and originality that comes with the great little place?
We hope so. But in some ways not, too. We think that interesting people go to interesting places, and we want to make sure interesting places keep going – a clone High Street is a very sad thing. But we also want great places to keep their character, and not be inundated with those that don’t respect the effort and individuality. Us GLPers certainly try to avoid sterile, personality free chains – but that’s not to say you can’t do a chain well. We would love to see more places that are a labour of love, and we think London’s market is moving that way, which is a great thing.

So when did you set up the page?
We’ve all always been determined to get to see the best of London, and for all the years we’ve lived here made sure we sniffed out the most original and personal places and activities. We started logging our thoughts and information in the summer of 2009, growing a nice little collection of gems. We decided to share what we’d learned and got going with our Facebook page in the run up to Valentine’s Day, 2010.

Did you have ambitions for the page? Have you been surprised by its popularity and growth and have you formed new ambitions? Will there be a GLP franchise rolling out across the globe?
We’ve started small and personal with what we know best, London, but we hope we’ve tapped into something that’s universal. We’re glad it’s picking up speed, but the main thing for us is to make sure it’s useful and focused. No man and his van or All Bar Ones. As the idea catches on we’d be delighted to spread it around the world. The key thing, for us, is to be both authentic and quality. We can hopefully provide the guidance on how to make it quality, because that’s very important to us, and we will look for fantastic on the ground local knowledge to take care of the authentic side of things as we expand outside of London. You can’t beat going to these places yourself – that’s where this idea starts and ends, so as much as possible we’ll be finding out similarly great little places wherever we go. We also want GLP to be useful, so we will be building Apps, a site and maps to help people get the best out of their cities.

And here’s the Great Little Places list of their personal great places:
We don’t want to give it all away just yet, but here are a few little places to think about:

1 Firstly, anything you invent yourself. There’s no excuse for boring dating, so use your brain and make some effort. Hand-made dating is always the best route as it’s tailored to the person you’re taking out. The important thing is that the date may not just be about a place but can also be an activity like a cocktail mixology masterclass for two or something random.

2 Maggie Jones’, Kensington Church Street

3 LMNT, Hackney

4 Horniman Museum, Dulwich

5 Michael Moore, Great Blandford Street

6 Four o nine, Clapham High Street

7 Holly Bush, Hampstead

8 The Kitchen, Parsons Green

9 Battersea Park. It’s like the Disneyland of dating. Especially the Secret English Garden

10 Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich