Headala wrote:I have never really loved Starbucks...I think they brought the idea of a "coffee shop" into the mainstream of American culture and paved the way for many of the third wave places we all love.

With all due respect, Alan, I really don't think that Starbucks brought the idea of a "coffee shop" into the mainstream of American culture. I don't know how old you are, but we original boomers grew up immersed in our coffee culture and we spent many many hours in coffee shops as kids and adolescents - I grew up in Atlantic City, and we had a few. In the decades between the general availability of a commercially usable espresso machine and the opening of Starbucks (about 1970, as I recall), coffee houses were common in college and university towns across the US. We had a great one called Cholmondeley's ("Chumley's" - still going strong but now apparently known as "Chum's") at Brandeis University when I started there in 1964. And any town with more than a few Italian families had at least one coffee shop from the early part of the 20th century. But by the '50s, there were a lot of coffee shops in the US. My favorite was (and still is, historically) Cafe Trieste in San Francisco - here's a great picture taken on opening day (1956?):



Many music clubs were coffee centered, because alcohol was a problem for places trying to attract college crowds. There had to be at least a dozen great ones in the Boston area. Chicago had the Fickle Pickle and the College of Complexes. San Francisco had the Hungry I, LA had Cosmo Alley and Alberto's, DC had Coffee 'n' Confusion, Detroit had the Cup of Socrates, Seattle had the White House and the Door, and Denver had the Green Spider. But, of course, Greenwich Village had some of the wildest of all - ya' gotta love the Bizarre Coffee Shop! Caffe Reggio opened in the Village in 1935 and was probably the first there. And you can't forget Rienzi, Cafe Wha etc.



The Gilded Cage opened in Philly in 1956 and rapidly became a center for music, art, culture and generally great people. Many of the coffee shops above had live music plus comedy and poetry, and some of our best loved artists began there. The Cage had Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, Arlo Guthrie, and a huge host of wonderful blues, jazz and folk people. We also had the Second Fret, Tarot, Exodus and others whose names I no longer remember - some of you have to remember The Main Point! But coffee was the thread that connected all these clubs around the country until the late '60s. And long before that, coffee was the staple of every diner in the US. In fact, coffee has been part of the fabric and culture of the US almost since it was formed and people have been gathering to drink it together since we were a frontier nation.

Remember that Starbucks opened at the end of this era as a classic espresso bar (just like the ones that were going out of business in droves) -they started with traditional approaches to traditional drinks and service, and almost closed because of the decline in interest in such places. So they gradually introduced the things that we on HB love to hate, surviving and going on to inspire a host of clones. But it was social change that drove the great early and midcentury coffee culture into the ground, not Starbucks. It's also important to understand that "coffee houses" came under organized attack by authorities at all levels because gatherings of kids were seen as subversive - the beat generation was spawned in coffee houses. Mort Sahl and Lennie Bruce were not popular with the PTA. The federal government saw them as communist breeding grounds, and police saw them as dens of iniquity. So they shut down places as innocuous as the coffee houses in YMCAs and churches. And it's probably the fact that Starbucks' coffee is so bad that made it possible for the current crop of better coffee shops to emerge and thrive.

Just for perspective, here's an archival pic of a coffee shop in center city Philadelphia in 1916:

Wow, what a post, David! This deserves its own thread so it doesn't get lost. BTW, I'd like to add Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, still going strong, and many wonderful pie shops that took pride in their coffee. I'm thinking of Addie Valens in Great Neck, NY. I was too young to try the coffee but the apple pie was outstanding and you don't serve that without a fresh cup. There's Fat Apple's in Berkeley, which is still there and serves a rich, dark cup. When I visited Mr. Espresso in Oakland, they showed me the 6 group lever machine from Caffe Mediterraneum, where the cafe latte was invented. Here's their page on its history. Plus there's a thriving tradition of Cuban cafes in South Florida.

The signs of our coffee heritage (which blanketed the landscape from coast to coast at one time) are also beautiful and inspiring!









And coffee kept the American West in motion......

bluesman wrote:We had a great one called Cholmondeley's ("Chumley's" - still going strong but now apparently known as "Chum's") at Brandeis University when I started there in 1964.

Cool. I'm a Brandeis alum, class of 2004. People call it Chum's, but know it's short for Cholmondeley's. Named for someone's dog I think. It's not THE place to hang out, buts it's always around to pop in if you want. It's biggest claim to fame now is that it was the cafe upon which Central Perk (the cafe from Friends) was based; the creators of that show went to Brandeis in the 80s. Anyway, back to the pending flame war

As Drgary has said, thank you bluesman for a true wonderfully written, informative post and great pictures too. I feel like your two posts here would fit in seemlessly with the (IMO) wonderfully written James Hoffmann "The World Atlas of Coffee."

Way off topic: I like your Robert Johnson (right?) avatar picture.

What a wonderful collection of information David! I can only guess that to be able to put something like this together you must have had the good fortune to have visited many of these. Fantastic!

mdmvrockford wrote:I like your Robert Johnson (right?) avatar picture.

Yes indeed - that's Mr Johnson! For a guy who only recorded 29 songs in his career, he had a profound influence on all of us.

David

...and thanks for keeping the blues alive!

Great post, Thanks

Sideshow wrote:People call it Chum's, but know it's short for Cholmondeley's. Named for someone's dog I think.

A Brit noble family. The standard joke was whether a Belmondsey was called Bumly.

Tonefish wrote:I can only guess that to be able to put something like this together you must have had the good fortune to have visited many of these. Fantastic!

I've been lucky enough to get to some of the early ones and many of the later ones. I was 11 when my sister went to Barnard in 1957, and she made it her mission to be sure I became a "proper" college man - this included food, beverage, clothing, music, literature etc. The effort may have been a bit premature, but (as they say in real estate and investment) you can't buy too soon, you can only sell too late. And I absolutely loved coffee from an early age - so when she made "espresso" for me in her Moka pot, I was in love.....and I've been chasing great espresso ever since. She went to graduate school at Penn, so I used to come in to Philly to stay with her and her roommate in the early '60s while I was in high school. They lived at 17th and Spruce, which was central to the great coffeehouses. And as a budding musician, I was absolutely in love with places where I could drink espresso and hang with some of the local greats (most of whom were actually very nice to me even though I was a young teenager - but I'm not sure they were only drinking coffee...).

FWIW, her ministrations did inure to my benefit even though largely in my early introduction to espresso, e.g. some of the books she gave me were truly horrible (try reading Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett when you're 12). She had me dressed in tweed and twill, which I suppose was OK. But it was a true revelation not that long afterward when I discovered Italian clothing, which fit my 42 long / 33 waist a lot better than the British-style bags my parents & sister put on me. I also learned from her to buy good stuff and take care of it, which I applied to everything from my coffee equipment to my clothes. As I still wear the same size, I actually have some clothing and footwear from the '60s that I wear - I only wish those coffee houses had been as durable, because we're back where we were 50+ years ago and I suspect some of those great old coffee shops would be very popular now.

My wife and I go to Cafe Trieste in SF whenever we're there - I just love the history. We hit most of the Chicago shops (along with Al's Roast Beef) whenever we can, and we seek out new old coffee houses wherever we go. I've dragged her to some of those old New York shops over the last 45 years, and we hit the new standards like BB, 4Barrel etc on every trip.

bluesman wrote:Yes indeed - that's Mr Johnson! For a guy who only recorded 29 songs in his career, he had a profound influence on all of us.

...and thanks for keeping the blues alive!

OFF TOPIC and I promise moderator(s) this will be only one: Note to musicians and other artists, consider wisely before making a deal with the Devil:)