Café or Cabaret de L’Enfer (Hell's Café), Paris, France, Late 19th Century

Good friend and Midnight Archive auteur Ronni Thomas just brought Paris's Café de L’Enfer to my attention. Between this and the equally delightful (and previously discussed) Cabaret du Néant (or Tavern of the Dead), I am becoming stronger in my conviction that fin de siècle Paris was probably the most perfect place ever.

As described on the National Geographic Website:

MARAIS
Hell's Swells

A hot spot called Hell's Café lured 19th-century Parisians to the city's Montmartre neighborhood—like the Marais—on the Right Bank of the Seine. With plaster lost souls writhing on its walls and a bug-eyed devil's head for a front door, le Café de l'Enfer may have been one of the world's first theme restaurants. According to one 1899 visitor, the café's doorman—in a Satan suit—welcomed diners with the greeting, "Enter and be damned!" Hell's waiters also dressed as devils. An order for three black coffees spiked with cognac was shrieked back to the kitchen as: "Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!"

Found via Retronaut who sourced it from Cool Stuff in Paris; all images via Retronaut; more to be found at the original link.