Tom King's Coffee House - Coffee House

Coffee House

The coffee house was an immediate success. Moll, who had been befriended by many of the leading courtesans of day while running her stall, made connections with fashionable society during her dalliance with Murray, and Tom had aristocratic connections of his own. The patronage of these groups, coupled with hard work and a policy of remaining open all night, meant that Tom and Moll were soon able to afford to rent out a second and third of the shacks. The pretty black barmaid, Black Betty (also known as Tawny Betty), provided another attraction. The shacks can be seen in many of the contemporary depictions of the piazza and features prominently in William Hogarth's Four Times of the Day (although it is rotated from its true position for the artistic effect of contrasting it with Inigo Jones' Church of St Paul).

By 1722, Tom King's Coffee House was already famed as place where anybody from the highest to the lowest could find a willing partner, and was frequented by many notables of the day: "all gentlemen to whom beds were unknown". Hogarth, Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Henry Fielding were all visitors. Fielding mentions it in both The Covent Garden Tragedy and Pasquin and Tobias Smollett in The Adventures of Roderick Random. Of the three shacks, the largest and most famous was known as the Long Room, while the two smaller shacks were reserved for gambling and drinking respectively.

Despite the role of the coffee house as a meeting place for whores and their clients, Moll insisted that there were to be no beds in any of the shacks other than the bed she and Tom shared (which was in the roof and accessible only by a ladder which they pulled up behind themselves). This avoided the chance of prosecution for brothel-keeping which could attract a whipping and a term in prison. The proximity of many well-known brothels made the provision of beds unnecessary anyway; customers were encouraged to stay until they were too drunk to go home, at which point they would be escorted to one of the nearby bagnios. Nevertheless, many of the moral campaigners of the time were keen to shut down the establishment. Sir John Gonson, a fervent supporter of the Society for the Reformation of Manners and renowned raider of brothels, regularly sent informers to the coffee house to try and uncover some offence. To counter this, Tom, Moll and their cronies developed their own argot, Talking Flash, to render their discussions impenetrable to outsiders, and if they were discovered and charged they bribed witnesses liberally to prevent the case succeeding.

Although Tom would drink with the customers, Moll always remained sober, looking out for trouble from the drunken patrons. While Moll, with the assistance of the hired bouncers, managed to curb the worst of the behaviour, there were still frequent fights on the premises and occasionally the violence spilled out into the surrounding area. In 1736, four men who had just left the coffee house disrupted a mass in the chapel of the Sardinian Ambassador, and in 1737, two of the bouncers, Edward and Noah Bethune, were charged with assault.

By 1739, the Kings had acquired an estate at Haverstock Hill, close to Hampstead Heath, and had built a villa and two houses. Tom King died the same year as a result of alcoholism.