Two or three points:

What is a coffee house?  The concept has blurred with, for instance,
bookstores selling fancy coffees (including chains such as Borders).

How has coffee house sociability changed?  I have in mind, for example,
working with laptops at coffee houses and often Internet access too.

My underlying question: why the choice of place for coffee or whatever?



On Mar 9, 2005, at 6:28 PM, bruce erickson wrote:

> Re: Tim Horton's
>
> Does it detract from the Canadian chic that Tim
> Horton's is now in Michigan (at least)?
>
> On a slightly more serious note, it seems to me that
> the upscale coffee shop chain model followed the
> beginning of the flavorful coffee boom, which began in
> the Pacific Northwest in the late 1970s. Small and
> somewhat Bohemian-style coffee shops started using
> freshly roasted beans to make strong coffee, espresso,
> etc. As they began to spread, it was only natural that
> capitalism American style would develop, and from that
> came small regional-chains (Allann Bros. and many
> more). Starbucks, et al followed.
>
> It strikes me as I remember this that the
> proliferation of micro-brewery beers started, or
> restarted, around the same time in the same region.
> And now many of them have grown and there are
> mid-sized breweries that brew the recipes for several
> labels. In a sense, history almost repeats itself on
> this one.
>
> Forgive my rambling, obviously closer to coffee time
> than beer time.
>
> Bruce A. Erickson
> Le Moyne College
>
>
>
>
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