In Virginia Woolf's The Years (1937), Eleanor Pargiter observes a lower-middle-class couple in a restaurant, enjoying their time off after work:

Variations of this scene appear in many novels of the 1930s; the restaurants and teashops where London's lower middle class spent their lunch breaks and evening outings became the settings in which their behaviour, their cultural preferences and even their dreams could be scrutinised. Eleanor concludes after watching the self-conscious couple that their performance is borrowed from the movies and illustrated magazines. This performance consisted of glamour and ‘nonchalance’ – modes incompatible with their working lives, but perfectly fitting in establishments that offered ordinary people atmospheres far removed from their mundane routines. Although Woolf does not identify it as such, the scene probably takes place in a Lyons Corner House – one of the four grand central London teashops that provided their patrons not only with affordable food, but also with a visual spectacle that could rival the glitter of the West End and the glamour of cinemas. From their beginnings in the great Victorian exhibitions, London's teashops were associated with accessible luxury. While the late-Victorian Savoy and the grand cafés of the West End initially catered only to wealthy Londoners, the expanding teashop chains, the ABC and J. Lyons and Co., soon offered atmospheres of ‘regal splendour’ to Londoners of all social strata.