El Vino

That was on the east side of the City of London and, as the business prospered by selling imported Burgundy, claret, and sherry, he opened four more wine bars, including the famous branch in Fleet Street.

In 1923, the business had to change its name, so that Bower could become an alderman, and so it was renamed El Vino – the Spanish name for wine.

Bower then became Lord Mayor and the business continued in his family until 2015, when it was sold to the Davy chain of wine bars.

[1][2] While journalists are not so common in Fleet Street now, the bar is still popular with the barristers and solicitors who work in the surrounding courts and legal offices.

[2][4] In 1982 in the case Gill and Coote v El Vino Co Ltd, Tess Gill and Anna Coote successfully challenged El Vino’s ban on women being served at the bar and drinking there rather than having their drinks brought to them at a table; the ban was held to be a violation of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.