Elvisly Yours Forced to Leave the Building

From "Elvisly Yours"......



Elvisly Yours has had a shop in London for 30 years. We have been at 233 Baker Street, London NW1 6XE for ten years and our Elvis Shop is a London landmark. We are even on “the knowledge” for London cabbies Over the years we have organised dozens of promotions attracting worldwide publicity for London and Britain and raising £thousands for the Lynda Jackson Macmillan Centre in memory of my darling wife, Maureen. Now we are being kicked out by new landlords, an overseas company who are probably Barry Manilow lovers.

We were informed by our previous landlords that new landlords Airdeny Ltd (British Virgin Islands) had bought the premises. We never heard a word from them until their law firm Fladgate LLP served papers on us 24^th March 2010 to vacate the premises 25^th March 2010 when our lease expired. We threatened to get an Injunction to delay or stop the repossession and were given a week extension.

The new landlords we have been informed are Ali al-Faraj andYoram Yossifoff…names sound familiar? Ali al-Faraj was the previous owner of Portsmouth FC until he defaulted on a loan to buy the club. Yoram Yossifoff was also connected with Portsmouth FC and apparently was a previous owner of Maccabi Tel Aviv. Having “put a gun to our heads” with the threat of immediate repossession they then demanded £50,000.00 per year rent. This is 425% increase in rent on our previous lease. We offered to pay rent well above the market rate and £10,000.00 per year more than we were paying but the offer was rejected.

You know, nothing has changed since the times of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham as landlords still have ridiculous power. You cannot lease shop space in London without signing away your rights to Landlords so they can kick you out anytime and charge want they want in rent. Either you pay the new rate or they have powers to change the locks of your premises.

Welcome to the 21st century Sid.

The guy still insists on selling tacky memorabilia from the 80's, times have changed.Thats why he moved from the shop he had in Shoreditch, then he opens another shop in Baker Street not just for Elvis but the Beatles too.

His website seems to update itself once a year if its lucky, most shops are closing down due to the internet.

Sid's not what i call a fan, but just uses Elvis name to make money, he hardly owns any Elvis records or films, himself.

Anytime he is on the TV he is trying to sell one of his clocks or pillows or something like that.

He had a stall at the very first showing of Elvis The Concert at Wembley Arena and he was more interested in selling his stock than he was of watching the show.

Sean i couldnt agree with you more, but there are many more like him out there with the logo EMM ELVIS MEANS MONEY

best wishes Mate

Paul

Hi Sean/Paul
I remember this guy 'conned' quite a few Elvis guys up to a contest day in London a few years back.
The prize was a residency in the fabulous new chain of Elvis theme restaurants that were due to be opened all over the UK - or rather they won't!
If my memory serves me well Paul Lillie won the contest with another - might have been that guy from Ireland. Anyway, he herded us all onto a open deck bus and had us parading around London (I still cringe now just thinking about it)
We then stopped at some shopping centre where we were allowed to sing without backing tracks for about 1 minute each. After we sang we were expected to go round the shopping centre and collect money for charity - trouble was there were more ETA's in the centre than shoppers! I also remember sneaking off with Jay Ashton to a nearby tea shop - ordered 2 cups of tea then realised neither of us have a penny between us - well no pockets in those jump suits!
The day climaxed in the bus being brought back to Sid's shop in Baked Street for the press to take pictures - oddly enough right outside the shop! Funny thing was the police were there just before the bus turned up and they wouldn't allow it to stop - so Sid got the driver to do about 1 to 2 miles an hour past the shop whilst the pics were taken - you couldn't make it up - Del Boy had nothing on him.
Strangest thing of all - I've haven't heard of one single Elvis Restaurant opening since - really strange that!
Neil Duncan

Elvis in Kent wrote:

Hi Sean/Paul
I remember this guy 'conned' quite a few Elvis guys up to a contest day in London a few years back.
The prize was a residency in the fabulous new chain of Elvis theme restaurants that were due to be opened all over the UK - or rather they won't!
If my memory serves me well Paul Lillie won the contest with another - might have been that guy from Ireland. Anyway, he herded us all onto a open deck bus and had us parading around London (I still cringe now just thinking about it)
We then stopped at some shopping centre where we were allowed to sing without backing tracks for about 1 minute each. After we sang we were expected to go round the shopping centre and collect money for charity - trouble was there were more ETA's in the centre than shoppers! I also remember sneaking off with Jay Ashton to a nearby tea shop - ordered 2 cups of tea then realised neither of us have a penny between us - well no pockets in those jump suits!
The day climaxed in the bus being brought back to Sid's shop in Baked Street for the press to take pictures - oddly enough right outside the shop! Funny thing was the police were there just before the bus turned up and they wouldn't allow it to stop - so Sid got the driver to do about 1 to 2 miles an hour past the shop whilst the pics were taken - you couldn't make it up - Del Boy had nothing on him.
Strangest thing of all - I've haven't heard of one single Elvis Restaurant opening since - really strange that!
Neil Duncan

Thanks for that interesting story Neil.

Sid Shaw is only interested in promoting himself, always has been.

He comes over with good intent and does charity events etc but at the end of the day, all he is thinking about is himself.

The only interest he has in Elvis is how much money he can make from him.

When i was a teenager in the 80's i thought his shop in Shoreditch was great and used to buy all the tacky stuff, scarfs,pennants,posters, anything that had Elvis's name ( or Elvisly Yours) on it, then i grew up and stopped buying from him.

Sid realised that Elvis fans would buy anything and he was right.

I often wondered whether these resturants were opening. Were there suppose to be a 60foot elvis as you walk in the doors.

val w (Kinky Boots) wrote:

I often wondered whether these resturants were opening. Were there suppose to be a 60foot elvis as you walk in the doors.

Yeah i think all that was for Sid was a pipe-dream.

Now he cant even afford to keep open his Baker Street shop.

He has made enough out of Elvis.

I think Layton Summers, did something for Sid didnt he

Paul

Hi Neil, nice to see you here again!

I too went along to that Sid Shaw event- it was promoted as the "50th Anniversary of Rock and Roll", remember?
And Sid wanted at least 50 ETAs to turn up- which I believe he achieved.

This was my First event of this type I went to and it was around this time (2004) that I was first getting serious about being an ETA.

But I have to say Neil, I had a fantastic day and I remember thinking how kind Sid was to give us all a framed certificate and a very nice Elvisly Yours (of course) calender. I know we were all lured there in part with the promise of a contract at the London flagship of the soon-to-be worldwide chain of Elvis restaurants but I would have gone anyway- even without this enticement.

My mate and ETA Marty Tempest gave me a lift up there and shortly after arriving at Sid's shop we were split into 2 groups and were herded by Sid onto the open-top buses. It was a beautiful sunny day and I was surprised to see Liberty Mounten was there and he told me later that he does'nt usually do these things. In fact, he did'nt join in at all and spent the whole bus ride around London alseep on the lower deck by himself!

Then it was back to the Trocadero basement for the competition and as you say Neil we were all given 60 seconds to impress the "judges" (who were they, anyway?) with Sid timing everyone but he kept forgetting to check his watch so some ETAs had well over their minute.

After this, I went to a nearby pub with Liberty and had 1 beer when all the ETAs and Sid walked past the window so I went out to join everyone leaving Liberty in the pub. Yes you are right Neil, the comp. was jointly won by Paul Lillie and Sid's friend from way back Mark Leen and I do have to be honest and say I felt this result was predermined (at least Mark anyway). And I knew at the time that these restaurants would be a VERY long time coming if they ever came at all.

This event probably marked the high-point of Sid's Elvis events as he never quite got the same number of ETAs together again and in recent years his events have included other "Celebrity Lookalikes" some of whom had no obvious talent and were way up their own backsides.

I feel sorry that the shop has closed down though and I do feel that it's the end of an era in some small way....

Jasper,

Im sure you had a great day but Sid has exploited ETAs for years just to gain publicity for himself and that open deck bus ride around London, says it all.

No wonder Liberty Mounten stayed down stairs.

Hi Jasper,
My input was not meant as a personal attack on Sid, I've only met the guy, very briefly, on one occassion. He's a businessman and his chosen line of business is trading in tacky Elvis goods. I appreciate there are plenty of people out there still buying such stuff. That said, it does remind me a little of the story surrounding the reasons why Pricilla Presley began her business - something about seeing all the cheap market traders selling rubbish directly opposite Gracelands and using Elvis's name to do so.
What does offend me is when people like Sid organise an Elvis Contest and precure 75 or so guys to travel to London under the pretence that they will be competing for what looked to be a major prize. I'm somewhat sensitive to this as I have been a victim of such malpractices on two occassions. Firstly by Selfridges of London who promised a show in Las Vegas to the winner and reneged on the prize (in fairness to them I did receive a substantial cash prize instead, but you would not have expected a company such as Selfridges to have allowed themselved to end up in such a situation) and more recently the infamous 'Battle of the South Contest' held in Essex where the promise of a 30 gig tour has disappeared into thin air.
The people that organise these events to publicise themselves, their business or merely to make a 'quick buck' on the event, knowing full well that they will not be able to honour the prizes promised, deserve to prosecuted for fraud. It is fraud by obtaining a pecunary advantage, though I accept it would be somewhat difficult to prove their intent not to provide the prize that they promise.
I would ask the question, Jasper, how many ETA's do you think would have turned up for Sid' big day if he was honest enough to say that there would be no benefit or expenses for the day apart from receiving a certificate and a calender - I suspect not many!
I'm sure you had a good day and it is good to meet other ETA's and have a chat - but the point I make is that we were all there under false pretences. Looking at it quite coldly we were all little pawns in a bit of a scam created by Sid to promote his business and allow him to take advantage of some free publicity.
At least, Colonel Parker would have been proud of him!
Neil