Coffee house

“ The stores on Second street were open and well lighted, and the coffee-house was full of redcoats carousing, while loose women tapped on the windows and gathered at the doors. All seemed merry and prosperous. ”

“ The coffee-house is itself—as, indeed, we found most of the native coffeehouses of the country—a model of good order, wholly relieved of riotous manner, and the very embodiment of ease and cleanliness. ”

“ The fame of the good coffee, which was better than most people found at home, spread far and near, and larger and larger numbers of clerks, workingmen and others, turned their steps daily, at lunch time, towards the Central Coffee-House. It was so much better than the poor stuff served in most of the eating-houses; and, with the sweet roll added, so much better than the free lunch and glass of beer or whisky with which too many had been accustomed to regale themselves. ”

“ Every coffee-house took three or four papers; there seems to have been in this latter phase of the once social institution no general conversation. The coffee-house as a place of resort and conversation gradually declined; one can hardly say why, except that all human institutions do decay. Perhaps manners declined; the leaders in literature ceased to be seen there; the city clerk began to crowd in; the tavern and the club drew men from the coffee-house. ”

“ A French coffee-house is a place well worth visiting by a stranger, more especially a [Pg 113] Yankee stranger. I will therefore detain you a little longer from the brilliant congregation of beauty and gallantry in the assembly room, and introduce you for a moment into this café and to its inmates. As the coffee houses here do not differ materially from each other except in size and richness of decoration, though some of them certainly are more fashionable resorts than others, the description of one of them will enable you perhaps to form some idea of other similar establishments in this city. ”

“ The coffee-house where well-made, unadulterated coffee might be obtained would be a formidable rival to the gin-palace. As it is, however, the art of making coffee—if ever possessed at all in England—has been so completely lost that the increasing disuse of the beverage is no matter of surprise. ”

“ The arrangement of a Turkish coffee-house is of the simplest. The essential is that the place should provide the beverage for which it exists and room for enjoying the same. A sketch of a coffee-shop may often be seen on the street, in a scrap of shade or sunshine according to the season, where a stool or two invite the passer-by to a moment of contemplation. Larger establishments, though they are rarely very large, are most often installed in a room longer than it is wide, having as many windows as possible at the street end and what we would call the bar at the other. ”

“ The illustration gives us an excellent idea of the interior of a coffee-house, and its domestic economy—the dame de comptoir, the roaring fire with its perpetual supply of hot water, and its coffee and tea pots set close by, so as to be kept warm, and the very plain tables and stools, show the accommodation that was required, and accepted, by the very plain-living people of that day. ”

“ Every profession, trade, class, and party had its favorite coffee house. "The bitter black drink called coffee," as Mr. Pepys described the beverage, brought together all sorts and conditions of men; and out of their mixed association there developed groups of patrons favoring particular houses and giving them character. It is easy to trace the transition of the group into a clique that later became a club, continuing for a time to meet at the coffee house or the chocolate house, but eventually demanding a house of its own. ”

“ In many cases its internal arrangements follow the old-time model, and the imitation extends to the provision of a daily newspaper or two from which customers may glean the news of the day without extra charge. Here and there, too, the coffee-house of the present perpetuates the convenience of its prototype by allowing customers' letters to be sent to its address. But the more exalted type of coffee-house has lost its identity in the club. ”

“ How comes it then that New York, the most central, and one of the largest and most prosperous cities in British America, cannot support one coffee house? It is a scandal to the city and its inhabitants to be destitute of such a convenience for want of due encouragement. A coffee house, indeed, there is, a very good and comfortable one, extremely well tended and accommodated, but it is frequented but by an inconsiderable number of people ”

“ The question that naturally arises with all who look practically at this matter is, whether there is any profit in the business of keeping a cheap temperance coffee-house? Can a pint of coffee, with sugar, milk and a two-ounce roll of bread, be furnished for five cents and leave any margin for profit? Mr. Baily's experiment has proved that it can.
FRIENDLY INNS.
But not alone in Philadelphia is the cheap coffee-house to be found. There are hundreds of them in our various towns and cities, though none on so large a scale as here; and they are rapidly multiplying and doing good. ”

“ A plain room, divided into plain stalls by varnished partitions, and fitted with plain Pembroke tables, papers, periodicals, and magazines, not quite guiltless of coffee stains and bread-and-butter spots, a neat waitress, economical of speech, and who is forever ringing the changes between two refrains of “coffee and slice,” and “tea and an hegg”—are common to all coffee-houses. There is more deal in some, more mahogany in others; there are aristocratic coffee-houses, where they serve you silver salt-castors with your muffins, and silver cream-jugs with your coffee ”

“ All Arabs of any education or wealth assemble at the coffee-house. To them it supplies the place of theatres and concerts, balls and tea-parties. There they spend the whole day, sometimes staying till past midnight. The coffee-house, like almost all other houses in the south, is built round a square court paved with white marble, in the middle of which plays a fountain. ”

“ And what is true of the coffee is true of the coffee-house. Working-men, in the main, frequent these places, and greasy, dirty places they are, with out one thing about them to cherish decency in a man or put self-respect into him. Tablecloths and napkins are unknown. A man eats in the midst of the debris left by his predecessor, and dribbles his own scraps about him and on the floor. In rush times, in such places, I have positively waded, through the muck and mess that covered the floor and I have managed to eat because I was abominably hungry and capable of eating anything. ”

“ One such is the coffee house, prototype of the bewildering club life of our own day. The eighteenth century coffee house, where the men of fashion and affairs foregathered to exchange social news over their glasses, was an organization naturally fostering altruism ”

“ Coffee has promoted clear thinking and right living wherever introduced. It has gone hand in hand with the world's onward march toward democracy.
As already told in this work, royal orders closed the coffee houses for short periods in Constantinople and in London; Germany required a license for the sale of the beverage; the French Revolution was fomented in coffee-house meetings; and the real cradle of American liberty is said to have been a coffee house in New York. ”

“ In the year 1791 an association of merchants was organized for the purpose of constructing a more commodious Coffee House than the Merchants’ Coffee House, and to provide a business centre for the mercantile community. ”

“ So every man of the upper or middle classes went daily to his coffee house to learn the news and to discuss it. The better class houses were the meeting places of the most substantial men in the community. Every coffee house had its orator, who became to his admirers a kind of "fourth estate of the realm." ”

“ A coffee-house is necessarily a pièce de résistance with Ward. He describes it graphically, though somewhat roughly, and he brings the scene of the interior vividly before our eyes. 'Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee House here; as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling Muckworms were as busy as so many Rats in an old Cheese Loft; some Going, some Coming, some Scribling, some Talking, some Drinking, some Smoaking, others Jangling ”

“ Although both types of houses had rooms for guests, and served meals, the coffee house was used for business purposes by permanent customers, while the tavern was patronized more by transients. Men met at the coffee house daily to carry on business, and went to the tavern for convivial purposes or lodgings. ”

“ As the outbreak of the Revolution drew near, fiery colonials, many in Quaker garb, congregated there to argue against British oppression of the colonies. After the Revolution, the leading citizens resorted to the coffee house to dine and sup and to hold their social functions.
When the city was founded in 1682, coffee cost too much to admit of its being retailed to the general public at coffee houses. William Penn wrote in his Accounts that in 1683 coffee in the berry was sometimes procured in New York at a cost of eighteen shillings nine pence the pound, equal to about $4.68. ”

“ Ye Coffee House, Philadelphia's first coffee house, opened about 1700—The two London coffee houses—The City tavern, or Merchants coffee house—How these, and other celebrated resorts, dominated the social, political, and business life of the Quaker City in the eighteenth century
William Penn is generally credited with the introduction of coffee into the Quaker colony which he founded on the Delaware in 1682. ”

“ I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their different places, where, however, a stranger is always well received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoatree than a Tory will be seen at the Coffee House, St James'.
The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts go to the Smyrna. There are other little coffee houses much frequented in this neighborhood—Young Man's for officers; Old Man's for stock jobbers, paymasters and courtiers, and Little Man's for sharpers. ”

“ The coffee house gradually became the common resort of all classes. In the mornings came the merchants, lawyers, physicians, brokers, workers, and wandering venders; in the afternoons, and until the late hours of the nights, the leisure classes, including the ladies. ”

“ The celebrated Bedford Coffee-house, in Covent Garden, once attracted so much attention as to have published, "Memoirs of the Bedford Coffee-house," two editions, 1751 and 1763. It stood "under the Piazza, in Covent Garden," in the northwest corner, near the entrance to the theatre, and has long ceased to exist.
In the Connoisseur, No. 1, 1754, we are assured that "this Coffee-house is every night crowded with men of parts. Almost every one you meet is a polite scholar and a wit. ”

“ More than one crew coming in half frozen were glad of the soup and coffee which were sent down to them in cans with baskets of bread. And this little coffee-room has been the outgrowth of just such hospitality. There are too many of the men to have in my house. I simply entertain them elsewhere, and I like to go and talk to them, and sometimes Petronella goes. ”

“ Gérôme's painting of the "Coffee House at Cairo," which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gives one a good idea of the atmosphere of the Egyptian café. The preparation and service is modified Turkish-Arabian. The coffee is ground to a powder, boiled in an ibrik with the addition of sugar, and served frothing in small cups. Story-tellers, singers, and dancers furnish amusement as of yore. ”

“ Here you will see blue and green ribbons and stars sitting familiarly and talking with the same freedom [Pg 80] as if they had left their equality and degrees of distance at home."
The Lion's Head at Button's Coffee House Designed by Hogarth, and put up by Addison, 1713 From a water color by T.H. Shepherd
Before entering the coffee house every one was recommended by the Tatler to prepare his body with three dishes of bohea and to purge his brains with two pinches of snuff. ”

“ But, being located near the Meal Market, where the merchants were wont to gather for trading purposes, it gradually became the meeting place of the city, at the expense of the Exchange coffee house, farther down the waterfront.
Merchants Coffee House (at the Right) as It Appeared from 1772 to 1804 The original coffee house of this name was opened on the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets about 1737, the business being moved to the southeast corner in 1772
Widow Ferrari presided over the original Merchants coffee house for fourteen years, until she moved across the street. ”

“ These houses were frequented by various classes of patrons—the patrician, the politician, the soldier, the artist, the old and the young—all had their special haunts where the company and the tariff were in accordance with the guests. The upper circles of male society—all above the actually poor—gravitated hither to a man.
For the Venetian of all ranks the coffee house was almost the last place visited on departure from the city, and the first visited on his return. ”

“ Near the coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafés constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music and dancing always abound, of the most unrefined description. ”