The Dalston pub hopes to open until 1.30am on weekends to ease its financial strain, but one resident has fought them at every turn
A Hackney pie and eel shop resurrected as a pub has run into opposition over plans to extend its licence. A Grade II listed premises on Kingsland High Street in Dalston, once the cockney eatery F Cooke on Kingsland High Street, opened its doors as The Black Eel in October 2025.
The premises is a food-led pub where patrons can play a range of games including darts, shuffleboard, table football, pétanque, as well as traditional board games. But amid “economic shocks”, such as rising business rates, its managers hope to keep the pub open until 1.30am on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays to make the venue more competitive with other venues in the area.
The managers claim this will also mean drinkers will leave more gradually, rather than all at once. Despite having already agreed to licensing conditions, such as putting a cap on customers allowed to stand with a drink, the latest bid to change its operating hours has run afoul of a local man worried about the impact on noise nuisance from people crowding the high street’s pavement.
To make his case, the man submitted a picture of people packed outside a different bar, Tipsy, located roughly five minutes away from the premises.
Claiming to represent other locals, at a Hackney Council licensing panel hearing on Tuesday (August 11), the man criticised what he deemed a lack of a plan for how to control customers, and argued that a later licence would have a domino effect allowing other nearby premises to follow suit.
The resident previously objected to two previous licensing changes from the venue, including where the managers conceded that no more than 50 people be allowed to stand with a drink. This time, he wished to remain anonymous – claiming it was “dangerous” to publicly object due to reprisals from the pub’s “radical” supporters.
Clarifying that he did not live adjacent to The Black Eel, the resident said drinkers congregating outside the pub was concerning for anyone walking down the high street or “if you just want to open a window on a hot night and not listen to a crowd of hundreds of people making a racket,” he said.
Though the Black Eel does boast a large beer garden, the venue’s founder, Andy Solley, insisted that the pub had no seating or queues at the front of the premises. “We’re not a nightclub, we haven’t got a DJ. Patrons disperse gradually over a period of time,” he said. This was not enough to satisfy the resident’s concerns. “The applicant just seems complacent to me,” he said.
The council’s licensing committee is expected to decide on the licensing application within five working days of the hearing.
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