ADDRESS: 17 Foksal Street

OPENING DATE: 18th October 1939

„Café Bodo”, the first artistic café that was opened only a few days after the capitulation of Warsaw, was owned by Eugeniusz Bodo and Stanisław Wojciechowski. However, soon after the outbreak of the war, the famous actor moved to Lvov and left the place to his partner. The new owner wanted to keep the original character of the café and so he decided to hire a group of best artists of that time as waiters. It was then, when the fashion for the artistic cafés begun in the wartime Warsaw. Crowds of the city residents visited „Café Bodo” as everyone wanted to be served by the back-then stars of the Polish stage and cinema. The café became an inspiration for other practitioners of liberal professions, such as actors, musicians, sportsmen and journalists. The place, aside from its gastronomic function, also served as a post office where, in the ruined city of Warsaw, everyone could come and ask about their closest ones or deliver a package.

Mapa udostępniona z serwisu mapa.um.warszawa.pl

WSPOMNIENIA

the place

Famous artists now occupied the place of the professional waiters. The so-called “half of the black one” was now served by smiling Marysieńka [Maria] Malicka or Karolina Lubieńska.

Roman Dziewoński, DODEK Dymsza, Wydawnictwo LTW, Dziekanów Leśny 2010.

Titbit

Several days before his arrest, the president of Warsaw Stefan Starzyński visited the café to pay a tribute to the artists’ demeanour. Standing, he would make toasts with the artists, who voluntarily left the stage not knowing for how long. In the Pieracki Street (Currently Foksal Street.), they had worked for about six months, until the owner kicked them out.

Jerzy Leszczyński, Z pamiętnika aktora, Czytelnik, Warszawa 1958.

Business

A group of artists begun waitressing and shared the profit (equally!).

Jerzy Leszczyński, Z pamiętnika aktora, Czytelnik, Warszawa 1958.

Routine

The life goes on, because you have to live. The coffee is served, cigarettes sold, and daily profit is shared. Mieczysław Fogg sings every afternoon exactly as he did before the war. And exactly as before the war, the orchestra plays. Yet, nobody asks anymore “how is it going?” Everyone knows the answer only too well.

Jerzy Leszczyński, Z pamiętnika aktora, Czytelnik, Warszawa 1958.

Music

In the afternoon Mieczysław Fogg would sing and the trio would play: Halina Grossmanowa (violin), Zofia Adamska (violoncello) i Mieczysław Mierzejewski (piano).

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