Bar Italia is a coffee shop

Café

A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...

 located on Frith Street

Frith Street

Frith Street is in the Soho area of London, England. To the north is Soho Square and to the south is Shaftesbury Avenue. The street crosses Old Compton Street, Bateman Street and Romilly Street.- History :...

 in Soho

Soho

Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...

 Central London

Central London

Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...

.

On January 26, 1926, John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird FRSE was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first practical, publicly demonstrated television system, and also the world's first fully electronic colour television tube...

 gave the first public demonstration of television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 at 22 Frith Street, the building where Bar Italiahttp://www.urbanpath.com/london/cafes/bar-italia.htm is located. The blue plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

 above the front door commemorates this event. There is also a little known film about this event.

Bar Italia in its present form was open as a coffee shop in 1949 by the Polledri family, and is still owned by Veronica and Anthony Polledri today.

In Popular Culture

Bar Italia inspired the song of the same name by the band Pulp, it featured as the last track of their 1995 album Different Class, it features lines such as "It's round the corner in Soho" and "where all the lonely people go".

In November 2010 it was announced that Dave Stewart

Dave Stewart

Dave Stewart may refer to:* Dave Stewart , former pitcher in Major League Baseball and 1989 World Series MVP* David A. Stewart , English musician and record producer best known for his work with Eurythmics...

 and Ian La Frenais

Ian La Frenais

Ian La Frenais, OBE, , is an English writer best known for his creative partnership with Dick Clement. They are most famous for television series including, The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.They have also written various other work...

 were writing a stage musical about the cafe which will be called Bar Italia. Stewart was quoted as saying "This coffee shop is very small but what goes on in there is as big as the world."

In July 2011 British artist Ed Gray

Ed Gray

Edward Gray is an American professional basketball player who was selected by the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the 1997 NBA Draft...

 unveiled a painting of Bar Italia featuring patrons Rupert Everett

Rupert Everett

Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...

 and John Hurt

John Hurt

John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...

. It now hangs in the cafe's window.

2010 London LifeStyle Awards

Bar Italia was awarded the 2010 London Lifestyle Awards - London Coffee Shop of the Year

London Lifestyle Awards

The London Lifestyle Awards first took place in 2010 and is now an event held annually.The awards are the first of their kind and the event attracts thousands of entrants.-Nominations and Ceremony:The awards were created by London PR man Jason Gale...