The most famous newer restaurants on the Boulevard des Italiens were the Maison Dorée, the Café Riche, and the Café Anglais, the latter two of which faced each other across the boulevard. They, and the other cafés modelled after them, had similar interior arrangements. Inside the door, the clients were welcomed by the "dame de comptoir", always a beautiful woman who was very elegantly dressed. Besides welcoming the clients, she was in charge of the distribution of pieces of sugar, two for each demitasse of coffee. A demitasse of coffee cost between 35 and 40 centimes, to which clients usually added a tip of two "sous", or ten centimes. An extra piece of sugar cost ten centimes. The floor of the café was lightly covered with sand, so the hurrying waiters would not slip. The technology of the coffee service was greatly improved in 1855 with the invention of the hydrostatic coffee percolator, first presented at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1855, which allowed a café to produce 50,000 demitasses a day.