Talk:Coffeehouse

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[edit] Incorrect Usage

I would like to dispute the following sentence in this page: "A counter clerk in a coffeehouse has come to be known in English as a barista, from the Italian word for bartender." Specifically the term 'counter clerk' as it assumes lack of skill...Kind of like a maccas worker being assigned a 'manager'. Barista as a noun has an understood meaning (at least in Australia and many parts of America) of 'one who is very skilled in the production of coffee' and has usually had extensive training in production of fine coffees. There are very few Baristas in Australia and of the several I've had the pleasure of enjoying coffee from they certainly didn't work on the counter! -- Cloricus 07 June 2006 1100 (UTC)

[edit] separate article?

Shouldn't Cannabis coffee shops have a article of its own? It's not just a variation on the normal cofeeshops but a totally different thing --62.251.90.73 28 June 2005 17:56 (UTC)

Cut and paste the present material and put it in a new page; don't delete what's here. Then return here and edit down a brief but substantially complete version, with the header Main article Cannabis Coffeehouse or whatever is the most common referent, which you've chosen for the split-off article. That way you can be sure you're not cannibalizing the trunk article.--Wetman 28 June 2005 20:49 (UTC)

Well, it isn't really completely different, is it? Not where I live! Migdejong 15:57, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, perhaps you would see more difference if you didn't live where you do. Seriously though, both kinds of coffee house are done a disservice by being included in one article. Someone interested in, say, the history of Lloyds, colonialism, Italian diasporic culture in the 1960s or the French Revolution is unlikely to be interested in Amsterdam's drug tourist cash hoovers. And a stoner looking for a good time is hardly going to thank you for misleading them into believing that the whole of the Netherlands is tolerant of cannabis or the accompanying drunk, stoned, largely British youth vomitting and pissing in the streets of Amsterdam. --User:81.97.212.219 2005-12-18 11:21:25

Says who?!! Save your pretentious bigotry for la malaise anglaise, and leave stoners out of it. If anything, your comments serve as an indictment of alcohol, not of the coffeehouses, which you broadly mischaracterize at a stroke as "drug tourist cash hoovers". It is exactly people like you who need to be disabused of your narrow stereotypes, in part by articles such as this. If you see cannabis coffeehouses as somehow different from the broader tradition of the coffeehouse, you have little understanding of any of it. -SM 22:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

No, my comments were an indictment of drug tourism and irresponsible public intoxication; neither of which have ever been very much to do with coffee houses or, outside the tourist areas of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Are you perhaps assuming - for whatever reason - that I have visited neither an Amsterdam coffee shop nor other parts of the NL? Also, what do you mean by your advice that I should save my bigotry for gay sex? Are you on drugs? -User:81.97.212.219 2005-12-19 10:07:56

The term la malaise anglaise denotes misbehaviour of British yobs overseas, particularly those travelling to soccer matches, though I find your mistake amusing. Again, where is your indictment of drug tourism? The public over-intoxification you cite is entirely down to alcohol (which the Dutch are considering banning on Queen's Day, things have gotten so bad). These same wretched people are part of the backdrop of tourist destinations all over Europe. The Czech Republic only in recent years banned cannabis, in part because officials there were persuaded by fallacious ideas such as yours. Now Prague is presumably safe for aging trinket and crystal shoppers. Your conflation of cannabis users with drunken, vomitting youths is an exercise in bigotry, and such bigotry- however mild or unintended- has consequences.

Also, your notion that a stoner looking for a good time may be misled by this article (which is not so misleading anyway) and is either unaware or disinterested in the broader context of coffeehouse culture, is also an exercise in bigotry. Even if there were a separte article exclusively on Dutch coffeehouses (with more specific history, not a bad idea), would you then want to excise all references to them from this article? Please see my further comments on the broader context below, for why I believe that to be a bad idea.

Finally, how would A'dam's finest museums, with their giftshops and blatent merchandising of high art, escape the label cash hoover in your view, and why would you apply it to coffeehouses who, after sale of a bag or two (the margins on which couldn't be so much better than those on whole bean coffee), settle into the same sort of modest coffehouse commerce as any other- tea, coffee, snacks. I'd believe you if you were to say that you have been to an A'dam coffeeshop, but purely from your remarks, I would be skeptical that you ever strayed very far from The Bulldog. -SM 15:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Why is it that regular cannabis users see relativism, no matter how tenuous, as the trump card in any discussion? No problem, please just be sure to amend the article to make it clear that you cannot find "coffee shops" all over the NL. And if the Bulldog is not typical of Amsterdam coffee shops, please find an image of another establishment to illustrate Amsterdam coffee shops. PS: I've never actually been in the Bulldog though I went to the Grasshopper once. These days in London I meet friends in Bar Italia, grab the odd cup from the Monmouth occasionally and am keen to try out the Tinderbox more. My dealer is the guy behind the counter at the Algerian Coffee Stores. He sorts me out with the best beans for my Gaggia at home. But hey, you enjoy your bowl, who's to say what's right and what's wrong -- it's all relative, right? If you say I have no interest in coffee houses and am a complete bigot, well, your perception is just as valid as anyone else's, right? -User:81.97.212.219 2005-12-19 17:29:07

I am not sure what you mean by relativism, tenuous or otherwise. The current text in the article is,

Many municipalities have a coffee shop policy. For some this is a "zero policy", i.e. they do not allow any. Most of such municipalities are either controlled by strict Protestant parties, or are bordering Belgium and Germany and simply do not wish to receive "drug tourism" from those countries.

...which I think more than suffices.

As for your patronage of Bar Italia, I applaud your taste- it is my favorite in Soho, and it is quite possible we've been there at the same time. It is my fervent hope someday to enjoy my fine ebony bowl in Soho openly, sitting over drinks with my friends, some of whom smoke grass and others do not. After all, I questioned your understanding of the broader flow, not your interest, and I shall now not question your understanding of coffee. I am also very fond of Borough Market, though only had coffee once-or-twice at Monmouth- my loss, apparently.

Cannabis coffeehouses flourish with a diversity comparable to that of other coffeehouses- perhaps greater for the many independently-owned ones there are. And, like most coffeehouses, they serve as a recreational meeting place for both resident and traveller alike. Moreover, their role as a catalyst for social change is indisputably in the highest tradition of coffehouses, however tawdry some may be. In how many coffeehouses in the world can you find yourself quite so at the edge of the counterculture as in those in Amsterdam, Christiania, Vancouver? Why would you ghettoize them as your first comments seem to do? -SM 22:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I've started a Cafe Culture page on wikitraveller. It would be great if people could add listings of significant cafes and cafes as related to travel as a waypoint or refuge.

Should the external link to "Sufi Coffee Shop" really be on this page? It feels more like advertising than a link with genuine relevance to the subject! Marxmax

I disagree, the Sufi Coffee Shop is not just a business, it is also the West coast center of Nimatullahi Sufi Order as well a cultural center. Refer to this news paper article written about the Sufi Coffee Shop Mountain View Voice 2004 Jan 02 --Ramiel.rashidi 07:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Precisely. Very little to do with Coffeehouse. --Wetman 07:29, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Essence of Coffeehouse

Recently, Laurel Bush added a reference to cannabis coffeehouses in the introduction, which was then removed by Jjshapiro. There are no bad guys in this: Laurel's point was an important one, but the sentence stuck out a bit, and so JJ cut it back. I've made my own expansion of the intro, which I hope blends a bit better. Also, to forstall any conflicts, or accusations of agenda pushing, I wanted to briefly explain my reasoning in this.

I have had the pleasure of whiling away time in cafés all over the world, including most of the best cities for it you would care to name. When I think of the common essence of these experiences, much of it is enriched by time spent in Arab cafés and A'dam coffeehouses, that is to say, when there, I could not help but think, this is what coffeehouses are all about!.

When I read this discussion page, I see the comment from the anonymous user regarding Dutch coffeehouses, asking isn't it completely different?. Well, no, it's not, really, though the very normalcy of it does seem a bit miraculous. As Christiania fades under repression, I cannot help but feel elegiac about it. It is important, then, to acknowledge that essential normalcy, simply by not pretending it does not exist (so that people like our anonymous user don't simply assume that normalcy doesn't exist). If it were to fade entirely, everywhere, something essential to the very idea of a coffeehouse would be lost.

As Western cities adopt anti-smoking rules, the pleasures of hookahs, as well as simple cigarettes (I used to smoke them, and I enjoyed them) could pass away as well, extending for me that sense of elegy, that sense of something essential at risk of fading away.

Finally, I'll note that the article is a bit thin on the aesthetic pleasures of grand European style cafes, as well as smaller American and Canadian ones that are not Starbucks, a shortcoming which should be addressed.

-SM 11:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for improvement. Yes, I took out that sentence because it seemed stuck on, and exaggerating the importance, in terms of the whole history of coffeehouses, of contemporary Netherlands marijuana cafes. Your rewrite adds balance. And I agree about the thinness of the aesthetic pleasures of grand European style cafes. Jeremy J. Shapiro 18:25, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French interwiki

Hi. The current French interwiki is wrong in my opinion. The term, as well the corresponding article, fr:Coffee shop designate the shops, notably in Amsterdam, where smoking cannabis is tolerated. The actual place where coffee is consumed is called a fr:café, but this article treats mostly the argriculture of coffee, though it does mention café to also mean the place where it is consumed. The original idea behing putting fr:Culture des cafés as the French interwiki was that the Coffeehouse article insists on the cultural aspects of the cafés. I believe that the best resolution for now is to have the French interwiki point to fr:café. Are there any objections? Thanks. Gene.arboit 03:01, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, there should be a separate article for fr:café (bar), or whatever would be appropriate, with a similar historical background. I agree that fr:Coffee shop is not the right interwiki link, but fr:café would be perhaps worse. Does there need to be an interwiki before a proper target is available? -SM 07:22, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I believe that the standard is to not have an interwiki link if no page exists... Otherwise, we'd have all the languages in the world listed there, and not much information. :-) Gene.arboit 22:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
My point exactly, so why have a link at all just now? -SM 00:16, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, just let me do something about it (results in 5 to 10 minutes). Gene.arboit 22:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I've dealt with the French article, but I think that there is the exact same problem with the German, Dutch and Finish articles. I'm not an authority on these languages, but from what I get, the links should be removed. The Japanese article seems fine... because my automatic translator does say that "喫茶店" translates to "coffeeshop", but it'd be nice if someone confirmed this. Gene.arboit 23:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Canada cannabis coffeeshops

Removed the legal cannabis reference to Canada. Sadly, this was untrue. 139.57.211.93 04:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)A Canadian

The statement is "tolerated in" not "legal in". I suppose that's in B.C. Gene.arboit 01:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and not just BC, but elsewhere in Canada as well. It is also not legal, but tolereated in Amsterdam. It is a nascent truth which ought to be affirmed and celebrated, though, sadly, darkness descends upon poor Christiania. -SM 01:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

No, not true, cannabis possession is illegal in all parts of Canada. 2005-12-01 13:28:05 139.57.211.93

You're not reading carefully, please don't edit what you clearly do not understand. -SM 01:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Cite for Canadian coffeeshops similar to those in the Netherlands? I know Emery has/had an in-the-open "bookstore", but I'm not aware that there are establishments where one can openly buy consumable cannabis in Canada, like in (extinct) Christiania or The Netherlands? - Gyan 06:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

"and in certain parts of Canada" This statement is untrue, or at the very least, lacks any citation to prove it. I removed it for this reason. Quitesilly 23:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)quitesilly

[edit] Revolutions plotted in coffeehouses?

Is there a source for the statement that "both the French and American revolutions were largely plotted in coffeehouses"? For the American Revolution, at least, I've never heard this---I have certainly read about taverns and pubs being involved, but not coffeehouses. --Delirium 04:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RfC

I have started a Request for comment regarding the image inclusion and what should be done, due to the edit wars regarding its inclusion. I think there is some confusion for some people as to why the reverts are even happening so it might be helpful if everyone at least explained their viewpoints as well. - cohesiont 05:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Kalendar Koffee House is considered an authentic French Style Cafe and coffee house. The images shown are for interior reference only. Currently there are not images showing an interior of a coffee house. The interior images of Kalendar are highly relevant for both the Coffee House and Cafes articles posted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EllisCHanna (talk • contribs)
  • normally, I would agree; but although the image looks quite appropriate, it is the same image on what are now two vanity/spam/corp pages. Additionally, your argument that there are no other pictures of a coffeehouse interiour is spurious, there are in fact two other interior shots. Subtle self-advertising, sure, its human nature; but this is disengenuous spam. Please delete. Bridesmill 15:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Bridesmill's comments. The policy does not allow for self-promotion or advertising, regardless of subtlety. Also, as pointed out above, there are already two interior photos and no particular reason to add clutter with a third. --DMG413 16:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete from the article Great photo, but...nope. It would be like having a picture of Disneyland in Castle#Medieval European castles. OK, that's not fair, but.... BTW, I found this in commons, no strong feelings on whether to use it, but it's nice, so thought I do a bit of show-and-tell. -SM 23:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to go ahead and remove it for now, looks like that's the consensus. That painting is pretty nice. - cohesiont 06:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
  • The image should stay in the article. There is not another interior photo of a "French Style Cafe" in the article, therefore this a highly relevant image. Claiming that the image is vanity/spam/corp is nonsense and an invalid arguement. The image adheres to WP:NPOV standards. Separately the Kalendar Koffee House article has been RFD. I agreed with the arguement made regarding Chains, and have removed the listing on the Coffee House Chains page. The RFD outcome should not reflect on this page. As editors you must not allow your emotions to influence your choices. If you allow the image to be removed then must reflect on the reasons why. None of the reason given for removal of the image are sound or reasonable ones.EllisCHanna 12:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
  • As Ellis' partner in Kalendar I wanted to add my part to this discussion. I completely understand the arguements made for the references and articles in the coffee house chains page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kalendar Koffee House. I can see how Wikipedia could become full of advertising style information weakening the references made available in this valuable living encycodedia. I expressed concerns to my partner about that section from the start. But I also saw the possibility of a fit because ultimately it is a section listing businesses with their styles and descriptions. Now the pages that offer descriptions of cafes and coffee houses have excellent written references describing very accurately in words what these are. But the pictures are obviously less effective. It was this section that we were first drawn to. Each section, with the exception of section 2, has one or two picture references as I have reviewed:

Intro Coffee House - One photo simple image reference. 1. History - two great reference images

2. Contemporary coffeehouses -no images as references (actually I think a Starbucks image would work well here - being an icon of the coffee movement of the 21 century- creating a whole new direction in coffeehouses again)

3. Contemporary cafés

image:Irelandcoffeeshop.jpg

The article on contemporary cafes is then highlighted with one image identified as: "A coffee shop in Ireland. There is no outside seating due to unsuitable weather." I assume this was used originally due to lack of any usable cafe images. The photograph could be depicting a bike repair shop or pub or any number of retail stores from its appearance, and lends no further descriptive relevance to this section. We are just suggesting, that as it appears, each catagory under Coffee Houses has a picture reference (with the acception of section 2), the triptych we have added offers a much stronger contibution to the contemporary cafe article, versus the ubiquitous corner coffee sandwich joint that appears to be represented (I appologize if this is actually a famous Irish quirky cafe that I do not know about.)

4. Cannabis coffee shops. The Bull Dog image is perfect. This is very well known coffee house for this section.

I hope this helps define our arguement for keeping this image in this section.I do not see how the Kalendar image is seen as any more or less of an advertising image than any others. For ultimately, we do believe it enhances the article. It was accepted at one point (it had been placed in a picture box like all the others). We hope this inclusion can be made again. Cher-anne Nash, Kalendar, April 1/06 9:00am EllisCHanna 14:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Chess in the coffeehouse

I am a veteran coffeehouse customer, and I have noticed something very obvious about coffeehouse tables which most people seem to miss. Has anybody noticed a chessboard engraved on a coffeehouse table's face? Did playing chess in coffeehouses use to be popular? Has anybody thought of bringing a chess set into a coffeehouse with chess tables?

My favourite cafe in Melbourne, Australia, actually lends chess sets to those customers who request one. :) There's not much better than long conversations with a close friend over coffee and chess... 58.175.32.121 07:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move Cannibis Shops to another page?

Perhaps the section on Cannibis should be move to a Cannibis related page. It contains almost no discussion of coffee, but rather focuses on Drug Laws. The Gomm 16:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Think this shouldn't be done, as the Netherlands' "coffee shops" have been a vital contribution to the world's history, and they are an exemption from international law. So this is of international concern, and should not be neglected, although some details in the article about the NL coffee shops might be shortened. User:Anonymous at that time 18:12 ECST, 18 October 2006

[edit] women in coffehouses

That women were not allowed in coffeehouses is a myth. At most, they were perhaps excluded in certain times and places, but 17th-century England wasn't one of them. As Adrian Johns puts it in The Nature of the Book (a very reliable source on the matter, I would argue),

"High Churchmen and nonconformists, gentlemen, retailers and mechanicks—and men and women, for the notion that coffeehouses excluded women is baseless—all flocked to this attraction"

Another good source that produces strong evidence of this is Steven Pincus' article "'Coffee Politicians Does Create': Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture" (The Journal of Modern History, December 1995).

More importantly, then, where is the evidence that women weren't allowed in? I think that's where the burden of proof rests at this point. Until then, I've changed the article accordingly. --Spudstud 06:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

I've tagged a section that says Many people complain that traditional, local venues are being pushed out by cloned, characterless cafes controlled by big business.The replacement of individually owned shops by chains is certainly something that should be mentioned in the article. The tone, however, condemns "big business", and is unsourced. The phrase "many people" also falls under the weasel words category.

[edit] Flawed conclusion of Dutch coffeehouses

This article treats Dutch "coffee shops", establishments where cannabis is sold, as if they were simply coffeehouses with drugs on the menu.

This is incorrect. In the Netherlands, a clear distinction is made between a coffee shop (a place that sells cannabis) and a koffiehuis (a coffeehouse as elsewhere around the world). They are not the same thing, and many Dutch people with go their entire lives without entering an actual coffee shop. SergioGeorgini 00:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Birth Place of Pasqua Rosée

The article describes Pasqua Rosée as a native of Ragusa, the link of which refers to the article on the Republc of Ragusa in present day Croatia. However, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has him down as from the city of Ragusa in Sicily, Italy, To me this seems more likely. I'm new to editing so I thought I'd leave someone else to make the change once the facts have been verified. KJ 82.46.52.187 01:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that! I encourage you to create an account (free and easy) and then be bold in your editing. I'll make the change and flag it inside the editing structure. Drop me a line on my talkpage if you want help. BrainyBabe 07:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What Boston is mean?

Boston had its first in 1670,… what Boston is it: Boston, Lincolnshire or Boston, Massachusetts? Because USA is never remind in text. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.69.189.36 (talk) 10:41, August 21, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cafe or Café

I suggest we put the accents back on café throughout the article.

The only reason that is stated for not using the accent is that since English "generally makes little use of diacritical marks, anglicisation involves a natural tendency to forgo them, and the anglicized spelling cafe has thus become very common in English-language usage throughout the world (although orthographic proscriptivists often disapprove of it)." I hate to be proscriptivist, but cafe is extremely unfamiliar to me (I've always seen it written with the accent), and every time I see cafe, I want to say /kef/.

Regarding English's tendency to remove accents, this is very true: words like coöperation, rôle, hôtel, and others all used to have diacritical marks that are rarely if ever seen now. However, in these examples, the loss of the accent didn't affect the "look" of the word; i.e., English pronunciation rules would make hotel /hotɛl/ even without the circunflex. Café is different--English pronunciation rules would have a reader see cafe and want to rhyme it with safe. In addition, the same note that says anglicization tends to get rid of accents also states that café is the most common spelling.

A similar case is résumé--if you removed the accents, you'd have resume, which looks like resume, and would lead readers to think of "starting up again" before thinking of CVs--even Wikipedia's article uses the accents. (Also note that some write resumé in an effort to remove accents but still differentiate). I submit that English gets rid of accents whenever it can, but cases like café and résumé/resumé show that it can't get rid of all of them. Also note that some native English words, such as learnèd, still make use of the diacritic in order to notify the reader that learned is not being used.

Basically, café is the most common spelling (according to the note), and the accent reminds the reader not to think /kef/, so I think we should put the accent back on all the cafes--Jrbbopp 22:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Support - the Shorter OED includes the accent for instance, and certainly it's the form normally seen in British English, one of the few words where the accent is retained, presumably just for the reason of pronunciation you mention. But then I tend to put the circumflex on things like rôle, if not on hotel :-) As an aside, I was somewhat surprised to see café redirect to coffeehouse, as in British usage the two are separate, reflecting distinct traditions. Coffeehouse specifically implies the establishments of the 17-18th centuries. Then came the more egalitarian tradition of the tea shop, which led to the coffee shop by analogy. Thus a Starbucks is a coffee shop - it would be very unusual in Britain to refer to a Starbucks as a café, and unheard of to call it a coffeehouse. A café implies a local, non-chain, establishment where the emphasis is more on food - the [caff] being a particularly British expression of the style, whereas "cafés" these days would be thought of as establishments more in the French tradition.FlagSteward 15:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "First Starbucks store"

Hmmm. The picture so captioned depicts the oldest existing Starbucks store, but the original store was about a block north of there in a building that was demolished almost three decades ago. - Jmabel | Talk 00:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Decline or death of Coffee Culture in America

Wondering if we should have a section on how free wireless and non-smoking is killing the conversation and culture in coffee shops. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vcczar (talk • contribs) 06:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)