Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz<\/a> and prominent poet Ahmed Shawqi, to widely-acclaimed novelist Youssef Idris and iconic singer Umm Kulthum.<\/p>\nA witness to Egypt\u2019s transformations<\/p>\n
Before Caf\u00e9 Riche, the Egyptian caf\u00e9 was typically a Gahwa Beladi (local caf\u00e9). These were neighborhood-centric, featured low wooden stools (takhta), served mainly coffee and shisha, and were almost exclusively for working-class men.<\/p>\n
When Khedive Ismail redesigned Cairo in the 1860s (known as Khedivial Cairo), he wanted to mimic Haussmann\u2019s Paris. This created \u201cDowntown\u201d (Wust al-Balad), a district of wide boulevards and circular squares, grand stone buildings with high ceilings, and outdoor seating that encouraged \u201cpeople watching,\u201d a European social pastime that was new to the region.<\/p>\n
Dr. Mohamed Afifi, professor of modern and contemporary history at Cairo University, tells Culture Custodian that the importance of Caf\u00e9 Riche is inseparable from the emergence of \u201cmodern caf\u00e9s\u201d in Egypt. He explains: Before the appearance of this pattern, caf\u00e9s had a traditional popular character, while caf\u00e9s like Riche, Groppi, and L\u2019Am\u00e9ricain came with a model influenced by the European space in form and social function.<\/p>\n
These caf\u00e9s became associated with the effendi class, the middle and upper middle class, and intellectuals, becoming public spaces for discussion and exchange of ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caf\u00e9 Riche played a notable role during the 1919 Revolution, when intellectuals and activists used it as a meeting place to exchange ideas. With the expansion of caf\u00e9s, bookshops, publishing houses, and cinemas in downtown Cairo during the twenties and thirties, Riche became part of an integrated cultural system.<\/p>\n
What the boutique hotel developers will find when they renovate remains to be seen, but they should know what lies beneath. Seven decades after the 1919 Revolution, the Cairo earthquake struck in 1992, resulting in the discovery of a hidden cellar beneath the caf\u00e9. Inside, a printing press that had been used to print secret leaflets calling for the 1919 Revolution was found, along with a secret back door.<\/p>\n
These contradictions played out within Riche itself. Upstairs, wealthy patrons listened to performances by the legendary Umm Kulthum. Below, in the caf\u00e9\u2019s basement, revolutionaries operated the secret printing press, churning out leaflets calling for revolution against British rule.<\/p>\n
In one of its corners sat medical student Erian Youssef, lying in wait for Youssef Wahba Pasha, the prime minister during Sultan Fuad I\u2019s era. As his car approached, the young radical threw two hand grenades that failed to assassinate him. The attempt came in the execution of a decision by the secret apparatus of the 1919 Revolution, in protest against his acceptance to form the ministry when the street was rallied around Saad Zaghloul.<\/p>\n
Revolutionaries clashing with the British sometimes sought shelter inside Riche, which became a regular target of police raids. Nearly a century later, a different generation of revolutionaries revolted against Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years. In Riche, they found refuge from the teargas-infused battles of Tahrir Square.<\/p>\n
Fighter Mahmoud al-Issawi sat in Riche in 1945, drank his coffee, then headed to parliament to assassinate Ahmed Maher Pasha, the prime minister during King Farouk\u2019s era.<\/p>\n
If hotel guests eventually occupy the fifth floor, they\u2019ll sleep above the tables where Gamal Abdel Nasser and his fellow Free Officers partly planned the 1952 revolution, though other downtown political caf\u00e9s also claim that honor. Nasser and Mohamed Anwar Sadat frequented it before July 1952, and they later became presidents of Egypt.<\/p>\n
The decline of its historical role<\/p>\n
The 1952 coup gave a shot in the arm to Egypt\u2019s native leftist and liberal intellectuals, including Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, who held his literary court there for many years. The caf\u00e9 transformed in the sixties into an unofficial literary salon where intellectuals gathered for ideological discussions and political dialogues.<\/p>\n
The theater that will be converted under the new development plan once hosted Naguib Mahfouz\u2019s weekly seminars after they were banned by security from the Opera Casino, transforming every Friday evening into a fixed appointment known to young writers by the minute.<\/p>\n
Writer and poet Maysoon Saqr, author of \u201cCaf\u00e9 Riche: An Eye on Egypt,\u201d observed that the caf\u00e9 distinguished itself with a \u201cnational\u201d character. She explains: During the occupation period, Caf\u00e9 Groppi was more associated with foreign soldiers, while Riche became a meeting place for the national movement and Egyptian intellectuals.<\/p>\n
Yet even in its heyday, the caf\u00e9 had critics. Poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote his satirical poem \u201cLong Live My Country\u2019s People\u201d about the caf\u00e9\u2019s intellectuals, criticizing what he saw as a separation between discourse and practice. He said in it: \u201cLong live the intellectual at Caf\u00e9 Riche \/ Slicked and suited, full of talk \/ Empty of practice \/ Enemy of crowds \/ With a few empty words \/ And a few terms \/ He fabricates solutions to problems instantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mubarak\u2019s tenure accelerated the decline. In 1990, Caf\u00e9 Riche closed under mysterious circumstances and was seriously damaged by the 1992 earthquake.<\/p>\n
Saqr believes the caf\u00e9 tried to restore some of this role with the outbreak of the January 25, 2011, revolution, when it opened its doors to discussions and meetings, and this was repeated in June 2013.<\/p>\n
Antony Michell, one of the heirs of Caf\u00e9 Riche, remembers bringing injured demonstrators inside during the January 28, 2011, clashes. \u201cWe used to bring the injured inside the caf\u00e9 during the clashes, especially on January 28, 2011, and we closed the doors to protect those inside from tear gas, and officers and soldiers would sometimes enter to change their clothes or regain their balance before returning to the street,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He points out that this solidarity role continued during the events of 2013, when he and his brother participated in the \u201cTamarod\u201d campaign, a grassroots movement that collected millions of signatures petitioning for the removal of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.<\/p>\n
But \u201cturnout remained relatively stable until the coronavirus pandemic, which formed a watershed in the decline of activity inside the place,\u201d Michell says. He attributes this to people staying in their homes or the death of a number of the caf\u00e9\u2019s regular intellectuals during the pandemic period, which led to a noticeable decrease in attendance.<\/p>\n
Afifi sees the decline of Riche\u2019s role as gradual, like most caf\u00e9s and cultural spaces in downtown Cairo. He explains: Intellectuals no longer find in the caf\u00e9 the same place that allows them to meet the public or readers, as was the case in previous periods, and the decline of downtown Cairo\u2019s centrality politically and culturally was directly reflected in Riche\u2019s condition, which has become a model for a broader transformation that has affected the entire area.<\/p>\n
Preservation or erasure?<\/p>\n
The downtown area is now witnessing government-led efforts to revive buildings by restoring them and organizing advertising signs in a style suitable for the heritage area. The Ismailia Real Estate Investment Company\u2019s plan is part of this wider project to rehabilitate Khedival Cairo.<\/p>\n
Afifi believes that the caf\u00e9\u2019s future is linked to the future of downtown Cairo itself, specifically regarding whether the city will retain its open cultural spaces, or gradually transform into a tourist facade without real public life.<\/p>\n
Regarding the building\u2019s future, Michell clarifies that the caf\u00e9\u2019s situation is stable and confirms that the family will work to keep it without any change. Yet how a caf\u00e9 functions with hotel guests overhead remains unclear.<\/p>\n
Art critic Khaled Mahmoud, one of Riche\u2019s regulars, says that the caf\u00e9 was an open platform for ideas, discussions, and differences. He adds that Riche did not gather intellectuals because of the coffee or the location only, but because of what was happening at the tables\u2014questions about literature, politics, and art.<\/p>\n
He believes that Riche\u2019s real value was not in its decoration or architectural history, but in being a witness to cultural transformations in Egypt, and a place that preserved the memory of successive generations of creators. He adds: \u201cEven today, just sitting here gives you a feeling that you\u2019re sitting on top of layers of stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether those stories will still echo after boutique hotel conversion, or fade into the sanitized heritage the government envisions for downtown, remains an open question. The walls have survived revolutions. Whether they can survive preservation is less certain.<\/p>\n
This article was published in collaboration with Egab<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cairo, Egypt For more than a century, Caf\u00e9 Riche has been far more than a coffee house in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21],"tags":[166262,166263,166264,1982],"class_list":["post-344810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-egypt","tag-cafe-riche","tag-cairo-egypt","tag-cultural-history","tag-egypt"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116970675440835352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}