Simpson's-in-the-Strand is one of London's oldest traditional English restaurants. Situated in the Strand, it is part of the Savoy Buildings, which also contain one of the world's most famous hotels, the Savoy. The restaurant has been "temporarily closed" since March 2020, with a reopening date to be announced in 2023. After a modest start in 1828 as a smoking room and soon afterwards as a coffee house, Simpson's achieved a dual fame, around 1850, for its traditional English food, particularly roast meats, and also as the most important venue in Britain for chess in the nineteenth century. Chess ceased to be a feature after Simpson's was bought by the Savoy Hotel group of companies at the end of the century, but as a purveyor of traditional English food, Simpson's has remained a celebrated dining venue throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. P. G. Wodehouse called it "a restful temple of food". Since 2005 Simpson's has been run by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. Early development An earlier building on the site was the Fountain Tavern, home to the celebrated literary group the Kit-Cat Club, but this was replaced by Samuel Reiss's Grand Cigar Divan which opened in 1828. The establishment soon developed as a coffee house, where gentlemen smoked cigars with their coffee, browsed over the daily journals and newspapers, indulged in lengthy conversations about the politics of the day and played chess, sitting on comfortable divans or sofas. Regular visitors would pay one guinea (21 shillings, that is, a pound and a shilling) a year for the use of the facilities and cups of coffee. The daily entrance fee for others was sixpence (6d) (which would be 2½ new pence), or a shilling and sixpence (1/6d) (7½ new pence) with coffee and a cigar. Chess matches were played against other coffee houses in the town, with top-hatted runners carrying the news of each move. The Grand Cigar Divan soon became recognised as the home of chess in England. Today, one of Simpson's original chess sets is displayed in the Bishop's Room. In 1848, Reiss joined forces with the caterer John Simpson (1808 or 09–1864) to expand the premises, renaming it "Simpson's Grand Divan Tavern". It was soon established as one of the top London restaurants, becoming a popular attraction with patrons including Charles Dickens, William Ewart Gladstone, and Benjamin Disraeli. Simpson introduced the practice of wheeling large joints