Hell’s Café: The First Themed Café

Fancy a Hot Cup of Sin

Reginald Ben-Halliday
3 min readJun 23, 2024
Cabaret de l’Enfer customers. Source: Wikipedia

Themed cafes, don’t you just love them? If you don’t, then stop reading and skip this article. WAIT!!! I was just joking, please continue reading. 
 
From Unicorn Café in Bangkok, Thailand, to a washroom-themed dessert restaurant called Poop Café in Toronto, Canada, themed cafes have been around for a long time. Here, we’ll be talking about the first-ever themed café. 
 
Imagine a café where you dine with the devil’s minions (I mean demons) from hell. Muhaha. 
Or 
If that’s not your style, perhaps sipping tea with angels of heaven might be.

Cabaret de L’Enfer

The street facade of Cabaret de l’Enfer featuring the jaws of Leviathan at the main entrance. Source; Wikipedia

Known in English as “The Cabaret of Hell,” this was a famous restaurant in Montmartre, Paris, founded by Antonin Alexander in 1892. It is regarded as the first themed café or restaurant where the ambiance was its main attraction. In 1895, three years after opening at No. 34 Boulevard de Clichy, Antonin moved the establishment down the street to No. 53, where it remained for more than half a century…

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