Intro of Coffee House

A coffeehouse (French/Portuguese: café; Spanish: cafetería; Italian: caffè, German: Café or Kaffeehaus, Turkish: Kahvehane) or coffee shop (from Arabic: qahwa) 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, flavored tobacco smoked through a hookah. In establishments where it is tolerated - which may be found notably in the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam - cannabis may be smoked as well.

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 another, or pass the time, whether individually or in small groups of 2 or 3.