Apparently Cairo's Famous Cafe Riche Has Reopened

Photo: https://www.facebook.com/Cafe-Richeeg-175557732650867/?fref=ts

I've posted about Cairo's famous Cafe Riche more than once, last spring when the owner's death led to its closure, perhaps permanently, and a discussion back in 2011 as to whether today's Riche was living off its historical reputation as opposed to the genuinely authentic place I frequented in the 70s and 80s.

It's now reported that the Riche has reopened, under the late owner's brother. That's good news for Cairo nostalgia fans, and the mandatory interview with Felfel, a waiter now said to be in his 80s; the article calls him Aam Felfel, so I'm pleased to learn he's now acquired the venerable appellation of "Uncle" in the 30 years or so since I saw him almost daily; I hope a raise or two came with it.

My earlier postings on the Riche dealt with its legendary past, and when I lived in downtown Cairo in 1977-1978  I was a patron almost daily, and again on periodic visits throughout the 1980s. The 1992 earthquake severely damaged the cafe and it was closed for several years.

One passage in the  Al-Monitor article did give me pause:

Café Riche’s vibrant political history led to its closure during the rule of Anwar al-Sadat. Although the late president was himself a patron of the café, he had it closed after he witnessed heated discussion and debates over his rule and the peace treaty with Israel taking place within its walls.

I question the accuracy here because  I know it was open in 1977-1978 and that it was also open when I returned to Cairo only two weeks after the Sadat assassination in October 1981. (And Anwar Sadat, a most imperially aloof President, would not have "witnessed" those discussions; his mukhabarat would have.) After some sanity checks, I believe if Sadat ever closed the Riche entirely it must have been in 1979 and fairly brief, but that government pressure may have already led to the Riche closing on Fridays, which was already standard practice in 1977 even before Sadat went to Jerusalem.(Naguib Mahfouz' translator/biographer Raymond Stock suggests to me this was to shut down Mahfouz' regular Friday nadwa or salon, which then moved elsewhere.)

Even if the Riche is still dining out on its onetime reputation, it's good to hear that it has reopened.

Photo: https://www.facebook.com/Cafe-Richeeg-175557732650867/?fref=ts

Khaled Diab for Al Jazeera Notes Closing of Cafe Riche

I recently noted the closing, perhaps permanent, of Cairo's famous Cafe Riche. Now Khaled Diab has a lengthy piece for Al Jazeera: "A cultural shift as iconic Cairo cafe closes."

Good News and Bad News on the Cairo Bar Scene: El-Horriya Still Going Strong, but Cafe Riche is Closed for Now, Perhaps for Good

This blog has occasionally commented on the bar scene in Cairo, especially the baladi or local hangouts as opposed to those in five-star hotels. I bear both good news and bad news: El-Horriya is  apparently going strong after 70 years, but the Cafe Riche, which goes back a century, is closed and unlikely to reopen.

I imagine most people who know downtown Cairo will be familiar with both. CairoScene has a piece, "El-Horreya Cafe: 70 Years Strong," dealing with the enduring coffeehouse/bar off Midan Falaky in the Bab al-Luq neighborhood. Always a sort of cross between a classic qahwa with men playing chess or backgammoin over tea or coffee, and a bar inside,Though the story throws in words like "infamous" and "notorious," those aren't really deserved unless you're a temperance campaigner. Centrally located not far from Tahrir Square and the old downtown campus of AUC, it has long been a place that cut across divides of class. They interview a barman who has worked there since the 1960s.

According to a 2010 story in Egypt Independent, the bar closed for several months that year for renovation, including a new paint job, but it doesn't sound like it spoiled the place.

But the news is not so good about an even older and more famous venue. After the death of its owner, the Cafe Riche has closed, and may never reopen.

The legendary cafe and bar, which in recent years has been selling its legend, is a few doors south of Midan Tal‘at Harb on the street of the same name, deep in the beating heart of downtown Cairo.

In 2011 I posted about the Riche: "Cairo's Cafe Riche: a Classic or Living Off its Reputation?" 

When I first lived in Egypt under Sadat in the 1970s, it was more or less a daily hangout. On multiple visits in the 1980s, I stopped by whenever possible. It suffered serious damage in the devastating 1992 Cairo earthquake and was, I believe, closed for much of the 1990s.

The Riche I knew was an egalitarian, welcoming place. Literary types and intellectuals rubbed elbows with students and workers, as well as backpacking tourists. I haven't seen the reopened post-earthquake version, which reviews say capitalizes on its historical reputation (the Free Officers, .Naguib Mahfouz, etc.) and was selective in its clientele.  My 2011 post linked above, a great piece in The Economist the same year (unsigned but probably by Max Rodenbeck) and the Ahram Online piece linked above all allude to the changes that have occurred. My Riche from the 70s and 80s had put on airs.

The Ahram article holds out some hope that developers will acquire and reopen the Riche, but in the wake of its owner's death and uncertainty about its ownership, it's closed for now. Even if it is resurrected, it will probably resemble the post-earthquake version rather than the glory days.

Beyond Parody: Brazil Has Not Just One, But Several Usama bin Laden-Themed Bars

No, really. From The Guardian:

Of the many strange sights awaiting England football fans in Brazil, a Sao Paulo bar named after Osama bin Laden – and run by a Bin Laden lookalike – may be the most unexpected.

According to his tumblr page, Ceará Francisco Helder Braga Fernandes, a Sao Paulo resident since 1978, renamed his bar soon after 9/11. With a long grey beard and thick dark eyebrows, he had been a lookalike without knowing it. But when Osama bin Laden became the world's most wanted man, appearing on TV screens around the world, one alarmed customer called the police to report he was lying low as a downtown barman.

Police arrived, laughed, and posed for pictures with him. He appeared on local TV and became a local celebrity. After he changed the name of the bar to cash in on his newfound fame, it became a hub for local goths and rockers. British blogger and Sao Paulo resident Andrew Creelman says the bar has become a home for metal fans, who spill out on to the pavement on weekends, listening to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Bin Laden's favorite bands. Also see a similar report in Al-Arabiya.

Too weird? Also from The Guardian story:

There are others too. Among them, in the seaside city of Niterói, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, a pool hall and bar named the Caverna do Bin Laden – Bin Laden's Cave; and in Juiz de Fora to the north, another Bin Laden's Bar, with a lookalike of its own behind the counter. Mac Margolis, of online news site Vocativ, searched online and found "nearly a dozen Brazilian establishments" named after the former Al-Qaida leader, "including bars, luncheonettes and one sit-down restaurant called Bin Laden and Family". 

Some of those might be peoole's real names I suppose, of course.

Women with Head Veils Are Being Denied Access to Bars in Egypt

An interesting if somewhat unfair trend if true:"Why are veiled women denied entry to bars in Egypt?"

Nightclubs included, apparently.

The Barman of Cairo's Windsor Hotel Bar Remembers

Last week ended with Nelson Mandela's passing. Let me start this week with a more positive note, and with a video that will warm the hearts of old Cairo hands, and perhaps educate the young ones.

Let me begin by noting that the bar of the old Windsor Hotel in Cairo, often called "the barrel bar" because the chairs (some at least) are made from barrel staves, an old British-era bar that survives pretty much intact, is by far the greatest bar in Cairo or in all of Egypt.

Not everyone will agree with this seemingly dogmatic, sweeping, but in fact quite factual, statement.

But they will quite simply be wrong.

Deceived perhaps by flashy modern bars, the slanders of Islamist critics, or simple ignorance, they should learn from this post.

(If you still disagree, start your own bloody blog and post your own misguided opinions.)

I will not exaggerate by saying, for example, that it is the greatest bar on the African continent, or the greatest bar since the unification of Egypt in 3100 BC, because I have no way of proving that, obviously.

But I'm pretty sure it's both, nonetheless.

Now, the video. Then a bit more. Via Zeinobia's indispensable blog, and produced by these folks, is this brief but wondrous profile of the man who has been barman at the barrel bar for more than three decades. In colloquial Egyptian Arabic, but with English subtitles:

The Windsor has been a favorite of mine for some 40 years. It stands on a side street not far from where the old Shepheard's stood until Black Saturday of 1952; I understand in British days, when the senior officers stayed at Shepheard's, the lesser officer ranks stayed here. I've stayed at the hotel, which can't threaten the five-stars, and eaten at the restaurant but forgotten it, but the bar is unforgettable.

More perhaps another time. Michael Palin of Monty Python fame did one of his world travelogues from the place, and it's one of the last surviving colonial-era bars in the capital. Do they still offer the day's newspapers in library sticks, like a British club? I hate colonialism, but damn, the Brits did good officers' bars wherever they went.

The Windsor hotel website is here. A few pictures:

Culture Wars: Turkey's Crackdown on Alcohol, and a Kissing Protest

UPDATE: See also this article.
 After a campaign by Prime Minister Erdogan, the Turkish Parliament has passed legislation banning alcohol advertising and sharply resisting the hours during which alcohol can be sold, barring restaurants from displaying alcohol where it can be seem from outside, and barring sales near schools and mosques. The move, inspired by the Islamic orientation of the ruling AKP party, has provoked controversy and some mockery among Turkey's secular, Kemalist elites. It has also caused stocks in Efes, the Middle East's  largest brewing company, to take a dive.

At Foreign Policy, Marya Hannun adds some perspective by asking "Did Turkey Just Become a Little More Like Texas?," reminding us that the US has some strange blue laws in some areas when it comes to alcohol as well.

Nor is the is the only recent battle in the emerging Turkish culture wars. As Juan Cole notes, after a subway conductor on the Ankara subway scolded a young couple for kissing in public, a flashmob-style public kissing protest was staged by protesters. The protest is shown in the video below.

These culture wars seem to be the wave of the future in the Middle East, where the polarization of attitudes between Westernized elites and traditional populations is often quite marked.

Enjoy the Weekend! Nostalgia for a Friday Happy Hour

This bartender in Cairo in 1942 looks like he's ready to prepare his clientele for the weekend. I think the caricature is Churchill. Possibly a British officers' bar. Shepheards? (burned 1952). Bar Cecil? (Survived into the 70s, when they made it into a bank.) It doesn't look like the Barrel Bar at the Windsor Hotel, a British survival that still survives I believe. Or one of the Clubs? Anyone who knows post a comment.

I don't think it was a Muslim Brotherhood hangout, but you never know.

Those Were The Days . . . Egyptian Stella Beer as a "Family Drink"

Before the Salafis in Egypt: "The Preferred Drink of the Family: Stella Beer."

Via Liberal Koshari

From some 60 years ago, apparently. They haven't managed to ban Stella yet, but they don't advertise it this way anymore. I can't tell if the little girl is supposed to be partaking. Thanks to Liberal Koshari for the image. (Update: I think they got it from Vintage Egypt, which dates it to 1953,)

Don't forget: Salafis or no, beer is an ancient tradition in Egypt. Beer was buried in tombs to refresh the deceased in the afterlife. Beermaking is shown in pharaonic figurines (also I believe buried in tombs), below:

 Of course, the Salafis wouldn't approve of the outfits, either.

Election Day at the Cap d'Or

 Ahram Online has a piece in which a reporter spent Saturday, the first day of the runoff elections, interviewing patrons at the Cap d'Or, a semi-baladi bar in Cairo.  Surprise, surprise! Utterly astonishing discovery: people who hang out in bars don't vote for the Muslim Brotherhood.

I link to this mostly for the (non-Ikhwan) old Cairo hands who may know the Cap d'Or. The article says its been there over 100 years; I can personally attest that it's been there for 40.

An observation: this short article in which most of the patrons support Ahmad Shafiq (out of fear the Brotherhood will close their local bar) spells Shafiq as "Shaqif," "Shafig," and "Shaifq," as well as the correct way. Guys, it's okay to write the first draft during the field research, but proofread it once you sober up,

Shades of Carrie Nation: The Salafi War on Liquor Stores and Bars in Tunisia.

Steve Inskeep at NPR is on a "Revolutionary Road Trip" across North Africa, and in his report "Once Tolerated, Alcohol Now Creates Rift in Tunisia." he tells this story of a hotel where he stopped:

Over dinner in the hotel restaurant, one of my traveling companions ordered a beer, only to have a staff member in his red blazer inform us sadly that the hotel did not serve alcohol. Later, the staff member whispered more of the story: If we had only arrived sooner, he would have been able to serve the beer.

A few days before our visit, he said, conservative religious activists came to the hotel and objected to the serving of alcohol, particularly on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

Tunisia has long cultivated a variety of decent wines, and brews a decent French-style beer called Celtia; its tourist industry is  major currency earner,  Though the Ixlamist Al-Nahda Party has a plurality in Parliament, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has insisted that there'll be no banning of the "booze and bikinis" being targeted in other countries. Well, the government isn't banning anything. Alcohol is still very much fully legal in Tunisia.. But as the anecdote above shows, some Islamists — the hardcore Salafis, not Al-Nahda, at least so far — are resorting to bullying, as in this story, or worse, smashing up and burning liquor stores and bars.

In recent weeks, radical Salafis have attacked establishments selling liquor in several places. On May 19 there was an organized attack on bars and liquor stores in Sidi Bouzid, where the Revolution was first sparked. Police were apparently passive, but after things got out of hand, the Justice Minister warned of harsh consequences.

Those who attacked liquor stores crossed the “red lines,” according to the minister. Bhiri said that there can be no “state within a state” and the culprits would be severely punished.
The statement came in response to the Salafist assault on bars as well as the house of a bar owner on Saturday (May 19^th) night, which resulted in an armed melee. The owner of the bar retaliated by firing on the Al-Rahma Mosque.

It sounds as if the barkeep might have been sampling his own product. Then in the northwestern town of Jendouba, sc3ne of confrontations over the wearing of niqab at the local university, masked "Salafis" attacked and burned bars, and also the police station for good measure,  There was some dispute about the identity of the attackers:

The perpetrators themselves, as well as the Jendouba residents, defined these individuals as  ”Salafists,” but Achraf believes that this may not entirely be the case. In his eyes, the wrongdoers described themselves as religiously conservative Salafists solely as a pretext to justify their actions. “These people pretend to be Salafist, but they used to be thugs. The people of Jendouba know them really well,” he asserted.

Though the government is pledging to stop such attacks, the NPR anecdote suggests many establishments are going dry out of fear.

Carrie Nation & Hatchet

Shades of Carrie Nation. The Salafis, and perhaps others of my overseas readers, may not be familiar with the singular career of Ms. Nation 1846-1911), an American temperance crusader whose formidable visage, and emblematic hatchet, appear at left. Wikipedia explains the origin of the hatchet and her attacks on saloons at the turn of the last century:

Nation continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, "That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you."^[2] The couple divorced in 1901, not having had any children.^[9]
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Her actions often did not include other people, just herself. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times for "hatchetations," as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets.^[10] In April 1901 Nation came to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various bars on 12th Street in Downtown Kansas City.^[11] She was arrested, hauled into court and fined $500 ($13,400 in 2011 dollars),^[12] although the judge suspended the fine so long as Nation never returned to Kansas City.^[13]

Carrie Nation, proto-Salafi?

UPDATE: I missed this post on thr Kefteji blog about the sort of down-market (what in Egypt would be called baladi) bars and liquor stores, which aren't what tourists would see on Avenue Bourguiba. Definitely read it. I hadn't seen it yet, though we seem to have used the same picture of Celtia.

The Future of Tourism in Egypt if Islamists Have Their Way: Is There One?

This young lady (photo courtesy The Arabist) is quite fetching to be sure, in what is sometimes dubbed a "burkini," but is she really the future of tourism in Egypt? Will American, British, French, Italian and Israeli tourists (I won't even bring up the Germans) be content to dress accordingly on Egypt's beaches (perhaps, since in some scenarios the males will all be somewhere totally separate), while sipping nothing stronger than lemonade, drawn solely to learn about the ancient culture, where the statues of pharaohs and their queens may be covered with cloth to protect their modesty, while the statues of gods and goddesses are hidden because they're graven idols? And where couples may be asked for marriage certificates when checking into hotels? In a country where tourism is a major source of hard currency and where the tourist infrastructure is extensive, it seems unlikely, But some of the Islamists who are feeling giddy with victory in the first phase of elections are talking about creating a "sin-free" tourism sector, banning not just alcohol and bikinis, but mixed bathing and perhaps more. Some Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, are trying to downplay the idea,  and given the country's economic plight, torpedoing the tourist industry hardly seems wise. The Islamist who was recently quoted as saying "They came to see the ancient civilization, not to drink alcohol," may misunderstand why people go to resorts like Sharm al-Sheikh or Hurghada, both of which are sorely lacking in ancient monuments, and  known purely as beach resorts.

Sharm al-Sheikh, for Now

Now, I think that that paragon of journalism The Daily Mail is going too far in proclaiming "The end of Sharm al-Sheikh?," and I'm sure Egypt's hotel industry will weigh in on these issues, As will the ruling military, which, I believe, may have some investments in the tourist sector.

In danger of extinction?

It's true, of course, that Hurghada and Sharm al-Sheikh are almost utterly alien to most Egyptians who haven't been there and who couldn't afford them anyway; the tourists aren't wearing bikinis in Egyptian villages or downtown Cairo. (So don't share this link with any rabid Islamists. It's a collection of YouTube videos of bikini contests in Hurghada.)

Cover up, Isis! You too, Horus!

The talk about censoring or otherwise concealing ancient Egyptian monuments seems equally counterproductive. If people are coming only for the ancient culture and not the beaches, are you going to hide the ancient culture? It naturally and disturbingly calls to mind the Taliban blowing up the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Since Egyptian gods and goddesses tend to be wearing loincloths and headdresses and not much in between (hey, it gets hot there in summer, and there was no A/C),  I suppose it is inevitable that some people are going to want to cover them up, even if they weren't already idols to begin with. Yet even the classic Isis/Horus madonna-and-child at left, extremely well-crafted as it is, will be taboo.

The cognitive dissonance between "they should come for our ancient culture" and "the ancient culture is pagan and evil" is going to be a problem as well.

Not too long ago Zeinobia printed this cartoon on her blog, which nails it down pretty well: the man — judging by the dome I think he represents Parliament — is shackled with balls and chains representing Egypt's problems (food issues, unemployment, poverty, abuse of women, etc.), and he has visibly empty pockets, but he is shouting about getting rid of bikinis.

They'll be ok with this though:  no bikinis here.

No Bikinis Here; Just Belts or Bronze Age G-Strings

Cairo's Cafe Riche: a Classic or Living Off its Reputation?

A long time ago, in a galaxy far,far away, when Anwar Sadat was President of Egypt and Husni Mubarak was only Vice President,  Cairo's Cafe Riche was my "local," whether in need of a coffeehouse or a bar. But the Riche was founded in 1908, so its history was already old when I was there. I probably was there most days other than Fridays and during Ramadan, when it was closed.

My Riche was, by all accounts, rather different from its present incarnation. Then it was open to all comers, and everyone from Egyptian intellectuals to everyday Egyptians to backpacking Westerners to travelers from the region reading Algerian or Saudi newspapers could be found there. I continued to visit regularly throughout the 80s, when I would find myself in Cairo. But then came the 1992 Cairo earthquake, which damaged the Riche and put it out of business for the bulk of the 1990s. I have not been there since its reopening a few years ago, but its current proprietor seems to be trying to profit from its reputation, perhaps a bit inflated, to lure tourists rather than locals. Some of the online reviews by tourists who read about it in Fodor's or Lonely Planet are full of disappointment; complaints of disappointing service and food (well, the food was never its strong point), even of the owner letting only tourists in and charging accordingly. You wouldn't guess that, admittedly, from this evocation of the Riche by Hassan Ibrahim:



I actually have one of those old fashioned, red-and-white Stella Beer tablecloths on the table in my downstairs party room, but don't tell anyone because it was acquired through bribery (though not at the Riche).

Now, the Riche has genuinely always been a hangout for the intelligentsia. I don't doubt that Naguib Mahfouz went there (though I never saw him there and he was one of Egypt's most famous faces); until the Sphinx Bar/Cafe farther up Talaat Harb Street (which everyone then called Suleiman Pasha Street) closed somewhere in the mid-70s, I understand he preferred that. Was the 1919 Revolution plotted at the Riche? Damned if I know. But I've read most of the memoirs written by the 1952 Free Officers, and if any of them mention plotting at the Riche, I never saw it. I'm sure Nasser had at least had coffee there (who hasn't?), but I'm also sure King Farouq's spooks were eavesdropping on conversations there just as Sadat's certainly were in the 70s. You don't plot a coup in a coffeehouse. Well, not a successful one anyway. (I do remember loud discussions at the Riche when Sadat announced he was going to Jerusalem in 1977.)

None of this is meant to denigrate the Riche. I haven't visited its present, post-earthquake incarnation. It's mentioned in Wikipedia and you can find its usual sort of travel-literature reviews here and here, but I gather from the comments to those and other reviews that what was once simply a hangout is now trying to be some cross between the Cafe les deux magots and Elaine's in the 70s.

I'll remember my Riche. I knew the waiters by name.

Qataris to Buy Raffles in Singapore: From Saudis. What Would Kipling Think?

I'm a sucker for colonial era hotels of the late British Empire. I usually can't afford to stay in them, but they're fine for tea or drinks; I regret that the original Shepheard's in Cairo was burned down back in 1952 when I was not yet in first grade, but I've enjoyed visits to the King David in Jerusalem, the Old Winter Palace in Luxor, the Old Cataract in Aswan, and, much farther afield, the Peninsula in Hong Kong and Raffles in Singapore. At the Writer's Bar at Raffles there are, or at least were in the late 1980s, pictures or caricatures of Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham and other folks who sat there writing while nursing their drinks (I suspect something like a Pimm's Cup, though I don't think I've ever tasted one, and the article linked below notes that the Singapore Sling was invented at Raffles), and at the Long Bar, you can picture the British Empire's satraps at their peak. (Kipling: "Send me somewhere East of Suez, where the best is like the worst, where there ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise a thirst . . . ")

Well, it looks like the Qataris, or at least a Qatari investment firm, are about to buy a majority share in Raffles. And, if I understand the report correctly, they're buying it from a Saudi investment group that has the controlling interest currently. The Saudis have owned the Long Bar and the Writer's Bar? Who knew? It's Waleed ibn Talal, or one of his many enterprises, apparently.

What would Kipling think?

And I know, those friends of mine who claim I blog too much about bars will feel justified again, though of well over a thousand posts, this will be only the sixth on bars. So there.

Morocco Has a Prohibition Law?

Okay, this AFP report surprised me. It appears that Morocco has a law dating from a Royal Decree in 1967 forbidding the sale of alcohol to Moroccan Muslims. Now I haven't been in Morocco in years, but I do recall spending time 20 or more years ago (but long since 1967) in bars where the entire clientele, except me, was native Arabic-speaking. So either Morocco's Jewish population (which indeed is one of the larger still remaining in the Arab world) is a lot bigger than I realized, or there's a big Arabic-speaking Christian minority that has been missed by the ethnographers, or (as the article notes), the decree is honored entirely in the breach.

Morocco has a domestic wine industry and also a flourishing beer industry, (despite an unfortunate tendency, like other Maghreb states, to define proper-tasting beer the way French person might). The AFP report quotes Islamists who want to enforce the Royal Decree and secularists who want to repeal it.

I wonder what the King thinks? I seem to recall some European press coverage when he was Heir Apparent . . . nah, I won't go there.

A Prophet Ahead of My Time: Stella's Guide to Cairo Baladi Bars

My earlier post on Black Saturday got me thinking about some of the targets that day. Shepheard's of course, and the Turf Club, and several other British clubs, and cinemas, seen as Western symbols; also a number of bars. I'm told the old Bar Cecil, which survived into the early 1970s, was a target. That led me into some surfing last night on the bars of Cairo, which as you'll note I've posted on before. though not as often as some of my friends claim (of over 900 posts, only three prior to this one involved bars). But in my wanderings I discovered that I was ahead of my time. Back in the 70s, as I've mentioned in those earlier posts, several friends and I — most of us having risen high enough in academia or government as to possibly not want to be identified here — worked on a little hand circulated guide to the baladi or down-market bars of Central Cairo.

Now I find, to my delight, that Stella, the Egyptian beer, has an online and somewhat interactive guide to what they describe as the Baladi bars of downtown Cairo. Now some of these bars are not really baladi, but they aren't in five-star hotels, either; I'm glad to see so many of the old ones are still around.

Here's a recent account that led me there, and I'm glad to know the Horreya is still serving after hours.

The Debate Continues

Yesterday I mentioned the long comments thread at Arabic Media Shack dealing with the recent spate of articles about Cairo bars. The debate has continued, and I've put my two piastres in, if you scroll down far enough, though I don't say anything I didn't already say here.

Is This Cairo Bar Scene Month, or What?

Just a couple of weeks after The Huffington Post ran a nostalgic piece longing for the vanished bars of central Cairo, now the BBC comes along and runs a nostalgic piece longing for the vanished bars of central Cairo. Different byline, same basic theme. Some of the same experts interviewed: the novelist who wrote The Yaqoubian Building, evocations of Naguib Mahfouz and belly dancing joints.

I don't know whether there was a press tour involving bar-hopping, or this is just pack journalism, or what. The BBC article does interview the Doss family, who run the Barrel Bar at the old Windsor Hotel, one of the truly great relics of the British colonial era. But otherwise it's the same theme: longing for the good old days.

Hardly the first time journalists have come up with the same idea, but interesting. I hope no one is offended but I'm creating a new tag on "bars," not because I plan a lot of posts on them, but because it seems to be an emerging theme for Western journalists.

WHOA — UPDATING: the wave of articles has sparked a post and a long (and lengthening) comment thread at Arabic Media Shack debating the accuracy of the characterizations, the question of who drinks, and much else besides. A real coffeehouse debate is going on over there. These folks are taking it very seriously, and one even mentions the buza place in Ataba I recall visiting once. Go take a look if you have an interest.

Also I gather the Huffington Post piece may have originally appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.

Huffington Post on the Bars of Cairo? Actually, Worth a Read and it Reminds Me of a Story...

Since I noted in my earlier post that today's news wasn't very inspiring, a little social commentary may be in order. Thanks to a link from The Arabist, I was led to this interesting piece over at The Huffington Post, of all places, about the decline of Cairo's non-elite downtown bars.

This is actually a good story, and what gives it away is that the authors were not just going to middle class bars but to the baladi bars in "popular" working-class neighborhoods like Bulaq. I know the Bar Massoud in Bulaq, which they mention, among others. It was a true baladi bar (that is, "of the country," "native,") working-class bar. The equivalent of a blue-collar bar in a steel-belt city, only it would be a white-galabiyya bar where the locals worked as vendors, doormen (bawabin), cab-drivers, laborers and such. If I remember Massoud correctly it was one of the biggest in Bulaq, which then had six or seven, and it may even have had Western-movie style swinging doors. One of the Bulaq bars did. I don't know many Westerners who ever went to them, and it wasn't a regular hangout, but it was a real glimpse of an Egypt even the Egyptian middle class never sees.

And it evokes a somewhat dormant area of my scholarly research product . . .

During a post-doctoral research year in Egypt in the late 1970s (1977-78 for the record, the year Sadat went to Jersualem), several fellow scholars (who have achieved some level of professional success and might not want me to identify them by name) and I actually wrote up a little underground guide to the baladi bars of Cairo. There were, as the article notes, a lot more of them then; the 1980s and 1990s were devastating to the baladi bar scene as religious pressures closed a lot of the bars lower-class Egyptians could afford, even while more five-star hotel bars were sprouting for the tourists and the nouveau riche. We explored the old, declining bars of the downtown and its outliers, described in the article I've linked to, as well as such areas as Shubra, Bulaq, Faggala -- mostly neighborhoods with minority or (Faggala) majority Christian populations,which meant they were a little less vulnerable to Islamist pressures as most of the bars were owned by Copts -- as well as such really down-market places as the makers of the ancient African fermented wheat drink known in Egypt as buza (a true speakeasy sort of place, but with families and, I'm sure, no sort of government license whatsoever). We disdained the big hotels and the upmarket areas such as Zamalek and Heliopolis. Our guidebook, typed up in the days before personal computers and circulated as a xeroxed samizdat, is pretty much gone with the wind (I may have a copy in a storage room somewhere, and a few mid-to-late-1980s updates on a 5 1/4" disc), but the memories endure, and are rather like those evoked by this story. [Readers: If you have an original complete copy post a comment and let me know.] Most of the bars we explored are gone now; some of those we patronized were known to Naguib Mahfouz and others of the literati, but most were holes-in-the-wall where foreigners were a decided oddity, and the Egyptian middle classes rarely showed up unless slumming. (And of course, one had to speak the language.) You do not want to know about the sanitary facilities.

Perhaps this article will remind other old Cairo hands of a different era in Cairo, before Islamist pressures closed the bars in the "popular quarters." I understand the bar scene today is one of wealthy young Egyptians with their cell-phones and text messages, not the baladi bars of old men in galabiyyas drinking Egyptian brandy, evoked in the article linked to.

There's a secondary class of bar worth remembering: the mid-level colonial bar. The old Bar Cecil on Midan Tawfiqiyya (Urabi) was a stupendous one: once a hangout of the British officer class, but not the senior ranks who hung out at Shepheard's, it was glorious for its big windows on the circle, its brass rails, and so much more, but it died, became a branch of the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), itself of later scandalous infamy, and is forgotten. Another mid-level British officers' bar survives I think (last I heard) in the Barrel Bar of the Hotel Windsor, which was an overflow for the original Shepheards burned in 1952. But the old colonial bars have their own fan clubs, and this post is really aimed at remembering the baladi spots.

And, to try to give some additional "redeeming social value" to this post, let me add a comment that spins off the word baladi in its sense of local, down-market, working class. It's still sometimes a bit of a pejorative "a baladi neighborhood," the baladi loaf of bread is the heaviest barley round, not the nice white bread of the middle clases, etc. But it also can mean "everyman": In the era of the monarchy the standard "Egyptian public" figure in Egyptian political cartoons -- the equivalent of the old "John Q. Public" in US cartoons of a certain era -- was a dapper gent in a tarbush (fez) called Misri Effendi, roughly "Mister Egyptian" using an honorific not used for the working classes. After the 1952 Revolution (and we can talk another time about whether it deserves the name of a Revolution), the standard character in political cartoons became Ibn al-Balad, "son of the country," usually a fellow in a white galabiyya and a skullcap. Middle-class types still appeared in cartoons where appropriate, but the national personification became Ibn al-Balad. Of course, the real Ibn al-Balad types didn't read political cartoons in Roz al-Yusuf or the big dailies, but at least they replaced Misri Effendi as a stereotypical cartoon icon.