Coffeehouses

Beginning with the kaveh kanes, as fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Arab establishments were known, coffeehouses have provided a place for people to socialize over a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. The coffeehouse combined with café has a longer European pedigree, but the American Revolution was planned in Boston’s Green Tavern, a coffeehouse that also served ale. In the 1950s smoky, atmospheric coffeehouses in cities such as San Francisco and New York fueled hipsters and beatniks. In the Vietnam War era, GI coffeehouses outside army bases promoted antiwar sentiments. By the end of the twentieth century, the coffeehouse boom based on espresso-milk drinks had given Americans an appreciation for safe places to meet or sip nonalcoholic beverages in contemplative solitude. Coffeehouses continue to thrive in twenty-first-century America, though a majority of new ventures, begun by neophytes, fold within a few years.