Parisian café
| Industry | Hospitality, Food and beverage |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1644 |
| Headquarters | Paris , France |
| Products | Coffee, tea, chocolate, liqueurs, wine, beer, food (restaurant menus) |
Cafés in Paris predominantly populate Paris, acting as essential social gathering spots, places for meetings, and destinations for leisure or refreshment. Distinct from standard coffeehouses, many serve comprehensive restaurant menus throughout the day, complemented by a full bar and a selection of wines. Popular drinks include the grand crème (a large white coffee), wine by the glass, beer (known as un demi or une pression), un pastis (an anise-flavored spirit), and espresso. Certain cafés also operate as bureaux de tabac, retailing tobacco products, metro tickets, and prepaid phone cards.
Among the most renowned Parisian cafés are Café de la Paix, Les Deux Magots, Café de Flore, Café de la Rotonde, La Coupole, Fouquet's, Le Deauville, along with more recent venues like Café Beaubourg and Drugstore Publicis. The longest-standing café still in operation is Café Procope, founded in 1686.
History
Coffee made its debut in Paris in 1644 when Pasqua Rosée established the city’s inaugural café at Place Saint-Germain. The concept flourished with the opening of Café Procope circa 1689 near the Comédie-Française. This establishment provided coffee, tea, chocolate, liqueurs, ice cream, and preserves within an elegant ambiance, attracting intellectual figures such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and D’Alembert. Cafés quickly became crucial hubs for exchanging news and engaging in political discussions, often regarded as more trustworthy than newspapers. By 1723, approximately 323 cafés existed in Paris; this number expanded to over 1,800 by 1790. These venues served as centers for social interaction and forums for literary and political debate.
Women seldom entered cafés; aristocratic ladies typically remained in their carriages where they were served drinks on silver trays. During the Revolution, cafés evolved into focal points of fervent political activity driven by Revolutionary clubs. Following the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, billiard rooms were introduced into some prominent cafés.
Louis-Sébastien Mercier observed that before the Revolution there were between six and seven hundred cafés in Paris serving as sanctuaries for idlers and shelters for the poor. He characterized cafés as informal academies where writers and theatrical works were critiqued. The staff were noted for their flirtatious behavior amid predominantly male clientele.
During the Restoration era, cafés transformed into significant social institutions dedicated to meeting friends, enjoying coffee, reading newspapers, playing checkers, and discussing politics. Some diversified into cafés-chantants featuring singing performances or offered concerts and dancing. Serving ice cream also became widespread.
Mariana Starke’s early 19th-century travel guides highlighted that women frequented cafés offering tea, coffee, and chocolate in the morning alongside liqueurs, beer, lemonade, and ice cream later in the day. Numerous cafés served a déjeuner froid à la fourchette, a cold meat breakfast favored by Parisians.
"Nothing about Parisian streets impresses British or American visitors more than the café culture on the sidewalks ... The Paris café remains emblematic—so unique that no equivalent term exists in English... Although no longer central to intellectual life, cafés are undoubtedly a defining feature of Parisian streets... A simple chair and an oak-patterned tin table uphold every good Frenchman’s right to enjoy his Byrrh—and Frankincense—right on the beloved city's pavement."--George and H. Pearl Adam, A Book about Paris. London: Jonathan Cape, 1927.
See also
- Bistro, a modest and casual French dining establishment
- Brasserie, a French eatery that may produce its own beer
- Sidewalk cafe
- Viennese coffee house, the café tradition in Vienna
- Cafés and dining venues in Paris during Napoleon's era
Further reading
- Boyer, Marie-France (1994) The French Café. London: Thames & Hudson (pp. 113–116 feature 45 prominent Parisian cafés, including 2 in Saint-Ouen and 8 located inside major brasseries)
- Fitch, Noël Riley (2006) The Grand Literary Cafés of Europe. London: New Holland; 160 pages
- Fitch, Noël Riley (2005) Literary Cafés of Paris; revised edition. River City Publications
- Fitch, Noël Riley (2007) Paris Café: Sélect Crowd. New York: Soft Skull Press; 120 pages