The old Mister Lasagna unit in Rupert Street

‘MISTER Lasagna’ has gone and taken his 17 different varieties of his signature dish to a new spot in the city.

But when you look through the window panes of the little shop in Rupert Street in Soho – everything cleared out and up for rent – a different ghost stares back in the reflection.

Yes, up until about eight months ago, people queued up for garlic and herb Italian lunches – and before that a garish dessert shop was functioning at No 53.

But when you look at the estate agent particulars, any lover of Ye Olde Soho and the days when things were just a tad scruffier – let’s call it bohemian – would surely spare a memory for the legendary Cheapo Cheapo Records.

If I had a billion pounds, I would buy the unit tomorrow and open a vinyl shop in tribute to the sifters cavern that once operated here.

My new shop would lose money no doubt, but think of the people who would get pleasure from simply combing through unsorted boxes for an afternoon just to take home a Wilson Pickett 7-inch they might already have got and a scratched John Lee Hooker CD.

There was a time, I have to tell the younger readers of the Westminster Extra, when you had to work hard to find those gems – but the process was almost more fun than getting home and actually having to listen to a whole Canned Heat album.

Cheapo Cheapo closed back in 2009 when its, let’s politely say slightly grouchy, owner Phil Cording passed away.

Cheapo Cheapo

I should here point you towards the Pismotality blog online, which still carries the greatest ode to the old shop.

“More burrow or lair than cavernous emporium of the sort found down the road at Piccadilly Circus, Cheapo’s basement was the kind of place where Kenneth Grahame’s Badger might have felt at home,” it says, with full accuracy.

“You could lose yourself – or rather find that earlier you, that thing of undefined hopes and dreams: a record collector, exactly as you were at 16.”

On YouTube, meanwhile, you will find a singer-songwriter called Alastair Dougall outlining his love for the place, singing: “♫ An open door, past the pushers and pimps and whores, that was Cheapo Cheapo Records, three full-to-bursting floors.

“Phil the owner, perpetual frown, keep you head down when he’s around… If you want to piss him off, just ask him what’s in the shop ♫”

Mr Cording’s irritability is often recalled; I often wondered how exhausting it must be to be like that all the time.

But trying to keep a record shop afloat when Pret A Manager is moving in on every corner must have been a stressful endeavour.

In 1994, I got a Joe Tex CD there – £2 cheaper than priced in Tower Records. Now they are both gone, big and small.

I still have the CD but haven’t got a player to play it on.

As I passed down Rupert Street this week, nobody at the newsagents or taco stand on the cobbles had heard what is likely to come next; I secretly wanted them to say “a new record shop for people who like dank smells and VG+ Chaka Khan LPs”.

It is being marketed as a café or restaurant, though. In Soho these days, filling your face conquers all.