Saint Etienne at Mario’s Café
Johnny Green (2022)
“Everyone's dreaming of all they've got to live for, joking around, still digging that sound” Saint Etienne, Mario’s Café
I’ve been photographing Saint Etienne since 2000, after being a fan throughout the 90s, sparked by hearing one of the greatest covers of all time, their version of Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart.
It was years before I realised Mario’s Cafe was…real. And more importantly, still open. When I finally visited, there stood a man with an acoustic guitar playing to half a dozen people. That man was of course Mario and the people his faithful, of which we are many.
I love Saint Etienne. The Words and Music, well, they’re there if you want them. If you need them, and I do. Mario meanwhile is the loveliest man in the world, so no wonder he runs the friendliest cafe in the world.
How beautiful that it goes back three generations to 1958 when here at 6 Kelly Street, grandfather Mario opened Tony’s Restaurant for his son, our Mario’s Dad and whose birthday it is this very day. It’s my favourite cafe.
Out of love, as well as in love, I shot these 15 photographs between 2000 and 2021, mainly in London, but also Manchester, Leamington Spa and Birmingham. There are thousands of others. 14 made it into Saint Etienne’s own very beautiful book published a few years back. Most are entirely unseen.
“And did you see the KLF last night?”
