The Café Riche of the long-ago sixties was perhaps the most successful and best regulated of the haunts of vanished London. Slack to an extreme till about 11 p.m., the huge mass of humanity as it poured out of the Argyll made straight for it. As one traversed the almost impassable Windmill Street along the narrow path kept by a bevy of police, all thoughts turned towards the Cafe Riche, where the best of suppers, oysters and champagne prepared one for the more arduous exertions of Cremorne or Mott's. 

'One of the Old Brigade' (Donald Shaw), London in the Sixties, 1908