downtown Bar Hop ft. Cafe Riche

On Talaat Harb Square, Café Riche stands as a witness to history, movements, revolutions, long nights, and legendary artists. When we think of history, we picture museums, lectures, or dusty manuscripts. But what about the oral histories tucked into bars, spilled across stools, or carried by spaces that just happened to bear witness?

One of those spaces is Café Riche. Part bar, part café, entirely legend. Standing tall in Downtown Cairo, it’s a monument in its own right. This is where Umm Kulthum first took the stage. Where Ahmed Fouad Negm and Sheikh Imam hung out, but also mocked the café’s self-serious intellectual crowd.

This is Cairo’s history outside the history books, told over Stellas and teas at Café Riche.

In the first episode of our series Downtown Cairo Bar Hops, we step into some of Downtown Cairo’s most iconic bars, Stella, Egypt’s most storied beer, in hand, tracing the city’s past through the places that drank, sang, and argued it into existence. Since 1897, Stella has lingered in these very spaces, poured through revolutions, laughter, and long nights that defined Cairo’s modern history.