With a cocktail bar and revolving floor, the restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower in central London was a swanky destination in the 1960s and 70s before it closed its doors to the public in 1980. This summer, to celebrate its 50th birthday, the building now known as the BT Tower will reopen briefly to the public.
For two weeks a pop-up restaurant on the 34th floor will serve lunch and dinner to 1,400 diners selected at random by public ballot. Customers, who do not have to be BT customers, will be able to enjoy the panoramic view as the revolving floor is pressed back into service.
The event celebrates half a century since the tower was officially opened by the prime minister Harold Wilson on 8 October 1965, and comes as BT’s pay television service embarks on its third season of Premier League football coverage.
A landmark on the London skyline, the modernist masterpiece has been described as “a supermodel version of a Dalek”. It has featured in numerous television shows and films, including Doctor Who and The Bourne Ultimatum, and was “destroyed” by a giant feline called Twinkle in an episode of the Goodies.
Today, the BT Tower serves as a television network switching centre, and the scrolling electronic sign at its summit announced the birth of Princess Charlotte earlier this year. The building is let out for charity events, but public access is limited.
“The BT Tower was a unique feat of engineering when it was first built and it remains an important and much loved building today,” said BT boss Gavin Patterson. “It has been a working icon of technological innovation for 50 years and what better way to celebrate that than by opening it to the public?”
The restaurant reopens from 25 July until 7 August, and anyone over the age of 18 will be able to enter the ballot. A four course set menu lunch will cost £50 a head, with each ticket holder able to bring up to three guests. A seven course dinner will be charged at £68.
In the 1960s, 4,000 visitors a day rode the lifts to the observation tower. The novelty faded and the building has been closed to the public since the 1980s, but BT said there was now renewed interest as Londoners rediscover a taste for 1960s architecture.
According to a 1966 Look at Life episode, Top of the Tower restaurant served 800 lunches and 1,300 dinners every day, with food ferried to the kitchens each morning from the basement store rooms. This year’s pop-up restaurant will be on a smaller scale. With one sitting a day, diners should be able to keep their table for several hours. The first ballot will open on www.bt.com/bttower50 at 9am on 22 June.
A second balloted opening is planned for the autumn, with 2,500 places for free drinks and snacks at the top of the tower.
• This article was amended on 21 February 2024. The name of the kitten that destroyed the BT Tower in the Goodies was Twinkle, not “Kitten Kong”, which was the name of the episode.
