see also A.R.Bennett in London and Londoners - click here

Tea-shops, for instance. I remember when I first was an art-student in London there wasn't such a thing as a tea-shop anywhere near where we--the girl-students--could go and get some lunch or a cup of tea. The only places of the sort were the 'Zoedone'. In the 'nineties they were very rough and quite impossible to go to, though perfectly well conducted. Tea, coffee, or cocoa was served over the counter at three-halfpence a cup. I remember the joy and excitement caused by the opening of the first A.B.C. shop close to Oxford Circus. I can only speak for art-students, but I am sure that every girl or woman-worker in the neighbourhood felt that the era of luxurious living had dawned on good old London at last.

Baroness Orczy, Links in the Chain of Life (autobiography), 1947