1937 Café Royal Cocktail Book Coronation Edition

initial stood for his own name, while the son-in-law felt flattered that his beloved Emperor of France reigned at least in name at the Cafe Royal when he was unable to reign anywhere else. When Nicols died, in 1897, he had lived long enough to see his little cafe grow into the finest restaurant in London, patronized by princes and peers, the leading lights of the arts; in fact, everybody who was anybody. His devoted wife survived him by twenty years, and carried on the control of the business until the day before she died. With the rebuilding of Regent Street the old cafe was pulled down and the present edifice rose in its place—a change that swept away the Bohemian element of the customers. With all these changes the old customers shook their heads, their beloved haunt was finished, they declared, just as " The Empire " was no longer the meeting place of the gilded youth of the town. The intervening years have shown that they were wrong, for, although the Cafe Royal had changed beyond recognition, its cooking and cellars maintained their old reputation under the management of the new regime. Once again pass and repass through the portals of the Cafe Royal everybody who is anybody.