A coffeehouse (French/Portuguese: café; Spanish: cafetería or café; Italian: caffè, German: Café or Kaffeehaus, Greek: Καφενείο, Καφενές, or Καφετέρια, Turkish: Kahvehane, Catalan: cafè) 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, coffeeho...
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A coffeehouse (French/Portuguese: café; Spanish: cafetería or café; Italian: caffè, German: Café or Kaffeehaus, Greek: Καφενείο, Καφενές, or Καφετέρια, Turkish: Kahvehane, Catalan: cafè) 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, coffeehouses focus on providing coffee and tea as well as light snacks. This differs from a café, which is an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals, and possibly being licensed to serve alcohol. Many coffee houses in the Muslim world, and in Muslim districts in the West, offer shisha (Nargile in Turkish), flavored tobacco smoked through a hookah.
From a cultural standpoint, coffeehouses largely serve as centers of social interaction: the coffeehouse provides social members with a place to congregate, talk, write, read, entertain one...
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