Delhiwale: A mysterious CP showroom

Here’s a game. Go, find this mysterious showroom in Connaught Place. The place opens almost daily, but — this is a big but! — it doesn’t sell anything. Although the shelves are partly stocked with things that were originally intended to be sold (hint: it isn’t a bookstore!).
The landmark’s name shall not be divulged, but it isn’t tough to locate. (One reason for not sharing the name is because the showroom’s friendly staffers requested for the place not to be explicitly identified). Even so, the establishment is deeply linked to CP’s origins, and ought to be recorded for posterity.
The showroom is almost as old as the colonial-era shopping district—it came up in 1937. The elderly man at the counter has been in the shop for 40 years, since the time when “the Indian Coffee House used to be where the entry to (the underground) Palika Bazar is.”
On a recent afternoon, the showroom was silent, except for the mildly creaking sounds of the ceiling fans. A second staffer was sitting behind a desk towards the far end. Palm under the chin, he was gazing at a wooden cabinet crammed with dozens of fat file folders.
Spotlessly clean, the showroom is like nothing else in CP. The shopping district elsewhere has transformed over the decades, most of its early landmarks have been replaced (many times over!) by coffee shop chains and branded outlets. The new hangouts retain nothing unique of CP—-they offer the same experiences that their branches offer to citizens in Mumbai and Manhattan. That said, the circular plaza continues to hold on to a few old giants, and those have survived by adapting to the altering trends.
This showroom stands out for existing like an embalmed mummy of some long-departed CP. A corner wall has black-and-white photos of the showroom’s early pioneers, along with a photo of its first outlet that opened in a Himalayan town in the 1890s.
The same corner is also claimed by an excellently preserved Godrej tijori. Like a museum exhibit, it is soaked in vibes of times past. The adjacent shelf has a striking looking stamp stand, lying unused for years.
The showroom’s patrons once comprised of the Capital’s top VIPs. Today, it is barely noticed by shoppers, as if it were invisible.
PS: Here’s one more hint. The showroom finds an honourable mention in legendary food writer Madhur Jaffrey’s 2006 memoirs (but it has nothing to do with food!)