Cafe Parisien

[Matthew O'Brien]

Hey everyone,

Does anybody know the specific dimensions for the Cafe Parisian? I can find this information for nearly any other public room on the ship, but this particular room has always confused me. I have often seen plans depicting the room with revolving doors both from the restaurant and the restuarant reception. Does anyone know if these doors were present on the Titanic, or just on the Olympic when the Cafe was later added? I have never seen them in any of the photos that I have seen on the Cafe of the Titanic.

All my best,

Matt

 

[Brian Hawley]

I have a photo that shows a sliding door in the bay from the resturant. At some point during the life of Olympic the Cafe was cleared in the center and used as a dance floor for the resturant.

I here is a photo.

 

[Matthew O'Brien]

Brian,

That is a beautiful photograph, I have never seen one like it. Did you find this photo in a book, if you did, which book? Thank you for posting this.

Matt

 

[Brian Hawley]

Glad you liked the photo Matt! It comes from a brochure White Star printed for Olympic in the late 1920's. If you go under the archive here on ET, Olympic, ballroom... you can see almost all the photos from this brochure. I posted them about 3 months ago.

Brian

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

The room was about 84ft. long on the Titanic, it was shorter on the Olympic being about 75ft. long. Both rooms on both ships were a little over 17ft. wide. There were no revolving doors on the Titanic, just on the Olympic. I bet this is a rare picture of the 1912 illustration of Olympic's proposed design of the Café Parisien! Here's a cropped scan:

Regards,

Daniel.

 

[Lester Mitcham]

I have no idea how to attach it so Daniel I'm sending you what looks more like a sketch than a photograph of the Cafe Parisien as it appears in an addition: in a 4 page Chapter entitled: The White Star Liner "Titanic"; to a reprint of the Shipbuilder. Can you please post it to this discussion for me?

Regards,
Lester

 

[John Meeks]

Hi Folks...!

Just as a note of interest, with regard to the Cafe Parisian....

It's my understanding that the Cafe was reproduced "nail-for nail" in (I believe) a West End Hotel (Leicester Square?) in the 'tween-wars' period, and that it took a direct hit from a German bomb in 1940, resulting in many deaths - including a famous American jazz-band leader known as "Snake-Hips" Johnston.

Anybody else got anything to offer on this one...?

Regards,

John M

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

Here's a rather poor quality, small version of what Lester was trying to post:

 

[Lester Mitcham]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for trying. With my appreciative thanks for your informations and instructions I think I now understand how to post an attachment. Here goes.

Regards,
Lester

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

A nice enlargement of Titanic's Café Parisien. No revolving doors, just the two double doors.

 

[Matthew O'Brien]

Thank you all for responding with so much information; all of the photos are wonderful and have really given me a better idea of the interior of the Cafe.

Thanks again,

Matt

 

[Arun Vajpey]

It might sound like a strange question, but I have a reason for asking.

If a man dined at the Cafe Parisien and then decided to go to the First Class Smoking Room, would he have to pass through the a la carte restaurant to do so?

The reason I ask is that apart from Diasy Minahan (9:45 pm ) and Maybelle Thorne (10 pm), one other person might have seen Captain Smith still at the Wideners' party table till a lot later than generally believed on that Sunday evening. Reportedly Lucian Smith, who dined with his wife Eloise at the Cafe Parisien, saw the Captain in the restaurant with rest of the party crowd as he later made his way to the Smoking Room to join the three Frenchmen in their card game. After the collision, he reportedly mentioned this to Eloise as they waited on the boat deck. Lucian Smith was lost in the sinking and Eloise, who survived, later told Helen Bishop about it.

 

[Nelson John]

So I was looking at Titanic’s Café Parisien photos. I noticed that the table tops had different shades. So I thought what if the left rows had red table tops while the right row had green table tops? There are large windows on the right row so everyone thought that’s just the sun making the table tops bright. But when you look closely, both the left and right row chairs had the same brightness, not darker like the left table top. There are some colorization shows the circle table being red and the square ones being gree but there are no solid evidences for that. Titanic: Honor & Glory had them completely red (burgundy). It could be completely green who knows? The runner in the middle was probably green since it’s nearly matches the right table row. What are your thoughts? Any evidences?

 

[DerpyPossum_Official]

that’s actually pretty interesting. the idea of two different arrays of furniture colour is news to me. The possibility seems pretty high, and this is a great example of more recent Titanic discoveries!

 

[Cam Houseman]

that’s actually pretty interesting. the idea of two different arrays of furniture colour is news to me. The possibility seems pretty high, and this is a great example of more recent Titanic discoveries!

Hi! How’re you?
I have a small question: why was the Verandah Cafe and Palm Court the unofficial children’s playroom?