American coffeehouses quickly became popular meeting spots for the locals. Citizens came to gossip, conduct business and enjoy coffee, beer, rum and food. Unlike their European counterparts, American coffeehouses offered lodging to weary travelers.

Coffeehouses soon became centers of commerce, politics and culture. The Green Dragon, on Union Street in Boston, was open from 1697 to 1832. Daniel Webster dubbed it the “headquarters of the Revolution," as it served Redcoats, officers of the crown, conspirators, patriots and generals.

New York had the Merchants Coffeehouse and the Tontine Coffeehouse. Merchants Coffeehouse was the spot where the Bank of New York was planned in 1784 and where brokers first sold stocks in 1790.

The Tontine Coffeehouse hosted elegant balls and banquets, doubled as the New York Stock Exchange and was the Empire State Building of its day.

Throughout American history, coffeehouses have featured great artists. Bob Dylan performed his first New York shows in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. In San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg introduced his blistering epic, Howl.