A HEREFORD restaurant was warned it was risking breaking the law by holding ladies only luncheons in 1985.

Effy's Restaurant, in East Street, which was at the time the only all-female establishment in the Good Food Guide, planned to start holding the just-for-women events every Wednesday that year.

But, they were were warned by one local solicitor, they could be breaking the Sex Discrimination Act by excluding men.

Co-owner Ellie Parker told the Hereford Times at the time that it made the plans sound "so seedy".

"It's not as if we are planning a male stripper. We're simply re-invoking an idea popular in the 1940s, a 'ladies luncheon club'," she said.

Determined to stand their ground, the all-female band behind the restaurant, which previously later hit the headlines when waitresses were given roller-skates to make meal deliveries, defied the warning to go ahead with their plans.

Hereford Times: Ellie Parker refuses the Hereford Times' male photographer entry to Effy's Restaurant in 1985Ellie Parker refuses the Hereford Times' male photographer entry to Effy's Restaurant in 1985 (Image: Hereford Times)

The jubilant team "slammed their doors" to male diners and defied modern convention as they launched the first of their ladies' luncheons in February that year, the Hereford Times reported.

Some 50 women flocked to the East Street eatery, with the owners declaring they would fight any man who did not like it in the courts.

Two timid men had tried to enter, it was reported, only to be swiftly given their marching orders.

The restaurant had started life as a beach bistro in the Caribbean, set up by Mrs Parker and Australian graphic designer Neffy Jonas.

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The pair later relocated their business to cooler climes, setting up shop in Hay-on-Wye, before Ms Jonas returned to Australia some years later.

Mrs Parker, keen to carry on the business, called in friend Helen Priday, and the pair took the restaurant from strength to strength before relocating to Hereford, with Ms Jonas rejoining the business.