A little further down but this pic shows what Villiers Street looked like before the new shopping bit was built
historicengland.org.uk
I looked into that "Florence Restaurant" one door down from the Princess of Wales in that pic:
Here's an earlier undated pic from a page about the pub, showing it was more of a cafe:
I Googled it and found a couple of mentions
Firstly an
account of the last movements of Hannah Tailford, a victim of the unsolved
Hammersmith nude murders, "one of the biggest manhunts in Scotland Yard's history":
"Arnold Downton, a British Rail shunter, knew the dead woman as 'Doll' and had seen her several times at the Charing Cross coffee stall. At about 6.30pm on 31 January he and his girlfriend saw her there, standing on her own. She was starving, so they took her to the Florence Cafe in Villiers Street and bought her a meal.
Secondly in an
account of Soho coffee bar scene:
"In the 1950s, London was there for the taking. It was bomb-damaged, impoverished and dirty, but it was also cheap, cosmopolitan and – in the area of Soho – a stimulating environment. Anyone could make their way into this raffish district and hope to get by. Here, you could drift around the cafes, make friends, maybe find casual employment and somewhere to doss down for the night. Those who became members of ‘the Group’ mostly arrived this way. The coffee bar scene, characterised by the hiss of espresso machines, and the steam of frothy milk, was growing fast. One Signor Riservato, a dental-equipment salesman from Italy, was the unlikely founder of this craze. Arriving in England to sell his wares, he was disgusted by what passed for coffee here. He switched his stock to sell Gaggia espresso machines, and opened his own café, the Moka Bar, which was the first to kick off the Soho coffee bar craze.
The founders of the Group - Alan Bain, Glyn Davies and Tony Potter – held court, singly or together, in a few selected coffee bars. ‘The Florence’ and ‘the Cross’, both in in Villiers St by Charing Cross, and the 2 Gs (The Gyre and Gimble) were favourites...Exciting times! Soho society then was a mix of truth-seeking youngsters, creative artists and original thinkers, but along with that went prostitutes, heavy protection rackets, and homeless runaways, many of whom were in trouble.[iii] Group members took their responsibilities seriously: ‘Some of those we met in the cafes were young girls who had run away from home or were wanted in court. Usually we managed to talk them into going back home, or facing up to whatever they were running away from,’ Keith Barnes reported. And here’s what Lionel Bowen had to say: "...
My generation of the Group met in three different restaurants: Joe Lyons Corner House in the Strand, The Cross and the Florence on Villiers Street. Where we met depended on how much money we had at any one time. The Florence Cafe was the best, but we had to order a meal to sit there for any length of time."
I remember my grandad being surprised when told the cafe had closed c.1990 - as if it had been long-standing institution, so this one certainly fits the bill in that regard....there must be some photos of the interior around somewhere...
Here's a sales brochure for most of the street being sold as a lot, confirms 29 has a basement:
