Cosmo

I was walking home from work on Monday when I noticed this old ghost sign on Finchley Road. See it, against the concrete? It had been covered up by another sign and was exposed when that one came down. It says "Cosmo Restaurant."

I wondered how old the sign was. So I did some online sleuthing and it turns out that the Cosmo Restaurant, which was in business from 1937 until 1998, had a long and colorful history. It was seen as a center of the vibrant Jewish community that sprang up in northwest London, and a venue where Jews who had fled fascism and the Holocaust often gathered. Even Sigmund Freud, who lived a short walk away, is said to have patronized the place, though Freud died in 1939 so if that's true he couldn't have gone there long.

There's a blue plaque marking the restaurant's significance on an outer wall. (I'm noticing that the plaque gives an opening year of 1933, which is earlier than some published accounts. That would make more sense for Freud, I suppose.)

The Cosmo's history was even the subject of a musical theater production in 2019. That linked article gives a lot of information about the restaurant through the memories of its patrons. Artist Pamela Howard, who helped create the theater piece, is quoted as saying, "I was a provincial girl from Birmingham studying at the Slade School of Art. I used to walk up Finchley Road early in the morning to Swiss Cottage station. I would look in the window of this café, where I saw all these ‘old people’ and I thought, who are they?"

I can easily imagine what that must have looked like, peering in the window and seeing all these people with so much shared history.

The Cosmo closed in 1998 -- probably around the time many of its patrons were vanishing -- so the ghost sign must be at least that old. I think the bit in the middle probably said "fully licensed," a phrase that appears on a lot of old restaurant facades in the UK. (It seems odd to me that a restaurant would have to point out that it's licensed, but whatever.)

In more recent years, the Cosmo site was the home of a couple of Indian restaurants, a gelato place and then a spa. If the signs on the windows are accurate, a Chinese restaurant is going in next.

I thought all this was pretty interesting. Once again, walking around London, we're all surrounded by history!