CAIRO — Central Cairo's 17 Talaat Harb Street is an address many Egyptian intellectuals know by heart. It is where Café Riche, one of the most famous cafés in Cairo, is located. The café reopened its doors in early October after being closed for four months following the death of its owner, Magdi Abdel Malak, in May. The café has resumed receiving the Arab intellectual, revolutionary and political visitors it has always hosted since its inception in 1908.

The café was established on the ruins of a palace that belonged to Mohammed Ali Tewfik Basha, a cousin of King Farouk, that dated back to 1836. After the palace was destroyed in 1908, the Jewish Ada family built the French-style café, which was later bought by wealthy Austrian Bernard Steinberg, who resided in Egypt at the time, on Oct. 26, 1914. Steinberg then sold it in 1915 to the French Pierre-Henry Ressigné, who named it “Café Riche” after a famous café in Paris. Many wealthy foreigners lived in Egypt during this era, and the British Mandate was imposed on Egypt in 1882, partly to protect these foreign nationals.

The café then rotated among Greek owners for nearly half a century until 1960, when the first Egyptian bought it. Mikhail Abdel Malak, Magdi Abdel Malak's father, renovated and reopened it in the 1990s following a 20-year closure. The café is currently owned by the sons of Magdi’s brother Michel and managed by one of them, Andrew Michel Abdel Malak.

Over the course of its history, the café has served as a meeting place for Arab writers and intellectuals such as Naguib Mahfouz, Youssef Idris, Amal Dankal, Salah Jahin, Tawfiq al-Hakim and Poet of the Nile Hafez Ibrahim. Its clientele also included many Syrian, Iraqi and Yemeni refugees, among them Iraqi poet Abdul Wahab al-Bayati, Syrian Hussein al-Hallak and Sudanese poet Mohammed Fetouri. A stage was attached to the café, offering a venue for great Arab singers like Umm Kulthum.