All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗

The tavern (at the left) was regarded as the largest inn of the colonies and stood next to the Bank of Pennsylvania (center). From a print made from a rare Birch engraving

It would seem from the terms of the lease that what Pemberton thought were ungodly things, were countenanced in other coffee houses of the day. Perhaps the regulations were too strict; for a few years later the house had passed into the hands of John Stokes, who used it as dwelling and a store.

City Tavern or Merchants Coffee House

The last of the celebrated coffee houses in Philadelphia was built in 1773 under the name of the City tavern, which later became known as the Merchants coffee house, possibly after the house of the same name that was then famous in New York. It stood in Second Street near Walnut Street, and in some respects was even more noted than Bradford's London coffee house, with which it had to compete in its early days.

The City tavern was patterned after the best London coffee houses; and when opened, it was looked upon as the finest and largest of its kind in America. It was three stories high, built of brick, and had several large club rooms, two of which were connected by a wide doorway that, when open, made a large dining room fifty feet long.

Daniel Smith was the first proprietor, and he opened it to the public early in 1774. Before the Revolution, Smith had a hard struggle trying to win patronage from Bradford's London coffee house, standing only a few blocks away. But during and after the war, the City tavern gradually took the lead, and for more than a quarter of a century was the principal gathering place of the city. At first, the house had various names in the public mind, some calling it by its proper title, the City tavern, others attaching the name of the proprietor and designating it as Smith's tavern, while still others used the title, the New tavern.

The gentlefolk of the city resorted to the City tavern after the Revolution as they had to Bradford's coffee house before. However, before reaching this high estate, it once was near destruction at the hands of the Tories, who threatened to tear it down. That was when it was proposed to hold a banquet there in honor of Mrs. George Washington, who had stopped in the city in 1776 while on the way to meet her distinguished husband, then at Cambridge in Massachusetts, taking over command of the American army. Trouble was averted by Mrs. Washington tactfully declining to appear at the tavern.

After peace came, the house was the scene of many of the fashionable entertainments of the period. Here met the City Dancing Assembly, and here was held the brilliant fête given by M. Gerard, first accredited representative from France to the United States, in honor of Louis XVI's birthday. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other leaders of public thought were more or less frequent visitors when in Philadelphia.

The exact date when the City tavern became the Merchants coffee house is unknown. When James Kitchen became proprietor, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was so called. In 1806 Kitchen turned the house into a bourse, or mercantile exchange. By that time clubs and hotels had come into fashion, and the coffee-house idea was losing caste with the élite of the city.

In the year 1806 William Renshaw planned to open the Exchange coffee house in the Bingham mansion on Third Street. He even solicited subscriptions to the enterprise, saying that he proposed to keep a marine diary and a registry of vessels for sale, to receive and to forward ships' letter bags, and to have accommodations for holding auctions. But he was persuaded from the idea, partly by the fact that the Merchants coffee house seemed to be satisfactorily filling that particular niche in the city life, and partly because the hotel business offered better inducements. He abandoned the plan, and opened the Mansion House hotel in the Bingham residence in 1807.