Juhász Gyula - Szántó András: Hotels - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)
This card featuring the Hotel Continental WAS POSTED IN 1907 gourmand’s a reputation. He would often lunch on oysters with the speaker of the parliamentary Lower House, Károly Szentiványi. Mr Frohner personally vouchsafed for the freshness of sea food on each occasion. In time, a “Frohner Lodge” took shape in the café, a place patronised first by Vienna, later by Pest actors including Ede Újházi, Gyula Vízvári and Ferenc Halmi. Their portraits decorated the walls, which is why the hall shortly became a theatrical museum of sorts. The Petőfi Society held its sessions in an upstairs private room. (It was here that in 1903 the poet Endre Ady first met his future muse Léda.) Having changed owners and lessees several times, the establishment was renamed Hotel Continental by György Holzwart in 1891. Although its lessee had every chance of success when he attempted to prevent the laying of a clattering tram line outside the flourishing hotel at the turn of the century, he went bankrupt after World War I. After that the building was first converted into a bank in 1917 and then into an apartment house in 1918. The Hotel PANNÓNIA No. 5 Rákóczi üt, district VII Raised on the spot where the inn Griff (Griffin) had stood before it burnt down in 1865, this hotel of a fine tradition was built in 1867 to plans by József Pán and was opened in 1868. Its customers included marketing countryfolk as well as actors of the neighbouring National 16
