The Coffee House,Coffee Shop and Restaurant

The Coffee House,Coffee Shop and Restaurant 

    This article is about establishments that serve coffee. For the social event, see Coffeehouse (event). For the Sirius XM music channel, see The Coffee House. For other uses, see Coffee shop.

A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests,

         The Ottoman chronicler İbrahim Peçevi reports the opening of the first coffeehouse in Istanbul:

         Until the year 962 [1555], in the High, God-Guarded city of Constantinople, as well as in Ottoman lands generally, coffee and coffee-houses did not exist. About that year, a fellow called Hakam from Aleppo and a wag called Shams from Damascus came to the city; they each opened a large shop in the district called Tahtakale, and began to purvey coffee.

           Various legends involving the introduction of coffee to Istanbul at a "Kiva Han" in the late 15th century circulate in culinary tradition, but with no documentation.

Coffeehouses in Mecca soon became a concern as places for political gatherings to the imams who banned them, and the drink, for Muslims between 1512 and 1524. In 1530, the first coffee house was opened in Damascus, and not long after there were many coffee houses in Cairo.

           The 17th Century French traveler Jean Chardin gave a lively description of the Persian coffeehouse scene.