The left-bank establishment was located[clarification needed] next to the former house of Lucile and Camille Desmoulins who, according to G. Lenotre, lived on the first floor at the time of their arrest for counter-revolutionary conspiracy in 1793.

The café had a terrace, a mezzanine, two upper floors, a billiard table, the quality of which Victor Hugo praises in Les Misérables,[4] and celebrated events by "serving the punch".

Before 1850, the place was run by a manager named Ronquier, and the theatre opposite gave rise to heated discussions between critics.

Subsequently, the Symbolist poets took up residence at the café, Gauguin alongside Stéphane Mallarmé, who wore "a Basque beret, an unspeakable mac-farlane and sculpted clogs".

In 1894, meetings were held at Café Voltaire by a student committee preparing the procession of the Mi-Carême (mid-Lent) cavalcade in the Paris Carnival.