The Club

The Edmundo Ros Club

In 1951 Edmundo Ros bought a club in Regent Street, the Coconut Grove, which was very popular during the war. The address, 100 Regent Street was not quite right because the in-clubs at that time were in Mayfair. Ros changed names , and when it was finally Edmundo Ros' Dinner and Supper Club, the stream of the right people and the Rolls-Royces turned there. Along came the BBC and the club became world famous.

Standards at the club were kept extremely high. Edmundo's notebook included all the names of the British Royal Family, the nobility, the counts, the pears and dukes. These people and those mentioned in "Who's Who" could get membership in to the club. The guests had also to be properly dressed. The Ladies coming from the tea party in Buckingham Palace were not allowed to wear their broad hats. When women began to wear trousers like men, Ros decided not to accept them

"Once a very well-known madame, the wife of Sir Cecil Hardwick, tried to enter the club dressed in pants. My reception had their orders, and she went to another night club very cross and hurt. She told everybody what an idiot Edmundo Ros was! There was a newspaper reporter listening and I got the biggest publicity you can think of:: a photo of her and the words: "Edmundo did not allow in.....marvellous! " King Hussein of Jordan, a Latin music aficionado, with his party was denied entrance because one of his party, film star Peter O'Toole, was not properly dressed and did not accept the tie offered to him."

Regular royal guests during the Club Era were Princess Margaret, Monaco's Prince Rainier and Prince Bertil of Sweden.

The club had 24 musicians and 53 employees, one of which had polishing the silver as his sole job. Ros says that all those details--you could not smoke the pipe before twelve o'clock--made the difference, and it was terribly important in England. The business was excellent until 1965 when gambling became legal in England. Ros noticed the difference immediately in the takings and sold the club.