Why do we go to coffee shops? It’s not just for the hot drinks | Emma Beddington

Starbucks wants people to stop hanging out in its US branches without buying anything. But sometimes we all need somewhere to sit that isn’t home

There has been a kerfuffle about cafes recently. In the US, Starbucks’ new “Coffeehouse Code of Conduct” is making people buy something or leave, reversing its previous laid-back attitude. Meanwhile, in Paris, cultural barricades are being raised between trad cafes and the kind that sell €5 almond milk cortados. The New York Times last month set out the “zinc bar v barista” philosophical divide between classic community hubs and hipster roasteries in the city, while a Parisienne on TikTok has posted a video pointing out three new-gen coffee shops within 50 metres of each other in the Marais, explaining that French people “take our time to have a coffee … we sit on a terrace”, but now “les Américains” are demanding takeaway americanos.

This is about what cafes are for – and the answer has always been more than coffee. Seventeenth-century coffee houses offered a democratic meeting space (well, unless you were a woman). Revolution brewed in US and French ones in the 18th century. They were also, historically, a refuge. In one of her memoirs, Simone de Beauvoir described spending whole days in the Café de Flore through the freezing winter of 1942-43, arriving early to get the hottest spot, next to the stovepipe. “We always had a shock of pleasure, emerging from the cold darkness, coming into this warm, bright den,” she wrote. She and others who did the same became a “family” of regulars. “We felt at home, safe.”

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