Coffeehouse

A coffeehouse shares some of the characteristics of a café or a bar, but does not emphasize alcoholic beverages; typically, it does not offer alcoholic beverages at all, focusing instead on coffee and perhaps tea and hot chocolate. Other food may range from baked goods to soups and sandwiches, and other casual meals.

Coffeehouses first became popular in Europe upon the introduction of coffee. Lloyd's of London started in a coffeehouse.

The current spate of chain coffeehouses such as Starbucks have a clear lineal descent from the espresso and pastry centered Italian coffeehouses of the Italian-American immigrant communities in the major US cities, notably New York City's Little Italy and Greenwich Village, Boston's North End, and San Francisco's North Beach. Both Greenwich Village and North Beach were major haunts of the Beats, who became highly identified with these coffeehouses. As the youth culture of the 1960s evolved, non-Italians consciously copied these coffeehouses.

The liquor laws in many areas in the United States generally prevent anyone under the age of 21 from entering bars, so coffeehouses in that country can often be important youth gathering places.

Since approximately the Beat era, the term coffeehouse has come to imply the availability of espresso drinks, and while "coffee shop" still could suggest an establishment where one would buy coffee, there has been an evolution so that it now suggests diner more than coffee-drinking hang-out perse.

Starting in the 1980s, a counter clerk in a coffeehouse has come to be known in English as a barista, from the Italian word for bartender.

The contemporary coffeehouse is just the latest example of a drinking establishment--bars, public houses, taverns and soda shops have also served this purpose--as the center for cultural exchange in a particular community, often fomenting social and political change. See, for example, the meetings of the Sons of Liberty of the American Revolution and the Beer Hall Putsch.

In the Netherlands(especially Amsterdam), a coffeehouse (or more frequently Coffee shop) is a euphemistic name for an establishment where marijuana can be purchased semi-legally. See Drugs policy of the Netherlands.