Porhászka László: The Danube Promenade - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)

building of the First General Hungarian Insurance Company), in the section toward the Danube where the Privor- szky Café used to be. From spring to autumn, its elegant patrons would sit in wicker chairs in the shade of a huge marquee looking out from the terrace of the café. The legendary restaurateur Imre Gundel recorded that the celebrated writer and operetta librettist Ferenc Molnár would only take his beer if Paulin himself poured it into his glass. In the evenings after 1945, the popular composer Jenő Horváth played the piano and sang his own songs, many of which had already been broadcast on the radio in the early forties.

In 1934, the exceptionally elegant Prince of Wales Nightclub, also owned by Lajos Paulin, opened in the front of the same building overlooking the square. It gives credit to the owner’s business spirit that this exclusive establishment was named in honour of the forthcoming visit of Edward Prince of Wales. During the few days in September 1935 that he spent in Budapest and during which he soon became popular, the prince himself turned up in the bar for a cocktail or two on a number of occasions, which made the club particularly attractive to the snobs of Pest.

Advertisement from 1937

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