The Mosque Kitchen is a Southside institution that's been serving up delicious Indian cuisine for so long now that it's hard to imagine the district without it.
Those of a certain age will recall that the corner of Nicolson Street and Nicolson Square that's occupied by the popular canteen was a grotty-looking gap-site for well over a decade.
And those older still, will remember the site was home to an independent department store called Ritchie's which tragically burned down in a terrible blaze.
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Ritchie's was one of many popular drapers in Edinburgh's Southside back in the day and it occupied one of the district's most handsome looking buildings.
Described in the Buildings of Scotland (1984) as "a jolly half-timbered structure with an angled turret", the building dated from the 1870s, but was dressed in a mock Tudor exterior that made it very pleasing on the eye. The frontage of another popular local department store, Parkers, at Bristo Square, also adopted the Tudor style.
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The building entered a period of decline in the 1980s when Ricthie's vacated the upper floors, and while the ground floor was occupied by a gift supplies shop for a spell, its days were sadly numbered.
On June 25, 1992, a major fire broke out at the former Ritchie's building, rendering it to little more than pile of rubble and ash. The authorities were left with little choice but to demolish the blackened structure.
Unfortunately, a dispute over land ownership meant that it would be another 16 years before a new building rose on the site. Resembling a Georgian townhouse, the current building that houses the Mosque Kitchen was eventually constructed in 2008.
Locals reminisced about the former Ritchie's building on the Lost Edinburgh Facebook page.
Carly Nowell said: "I used to love being taken to Ritchies for my shoes, the smell of leather in the Shoe Dept was heavenly. The Womens Wear Dept always reminded me of Are You Being Served with its displays."
Another member commented: "I worked in Ritchies in the menswear department for a wee while in 1964. It was a lovely old building, unfortunately old Mr Ritchie was a bit of a miserable git who paid slave wages."
Recalling the night of the fire, David Stephen said: "The night that shop caught fire, I had just moved into a flat directly across the road from it. above the kebab shop in Nicolson street.
"I woke up to the flat bathed in blue flashing lights and the terrible stench of smoke. It was like wakening up in a nightmare."
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