The Development of Tavern

Tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and more than likely, also be served food.

A papyrus document from ancient Egypt warns, “ Do not drink in the taverns.........for fear that people repeat words which may have gone out of your mouth without you being aware of having uttered them.”

The beer tavern of ancient Egypt were furnished with mats, stools and chairs upon which customers sat side-by-side, fraternally drinking beer, wine, palm brandy, cooked and perfumed liquors.

The taverns of Babylon and Nineveh were owned by wealth merchants who employed women managers, sold liquor on credit, and received payment in grain, usually after the harvest.

Greek and Roman cities had taverns that serves food as well as drink; excavations on Pompeii (a Roman city of 20,000) have uncovered the remains of 118 bars.

In both Greece and Rome some taverns offered lodging for the night or gambling and other amusements.

The Romans were proud people who held that the business of conducting a tavern was a low form of occupation and the running of such establishments was usually entrusted to slaves.

After the fall of Roman Empire, the next taverns reappeared, they were alehouses along the trade routes which provided a stable for the horses, a place to sleep and sometimes a meal.

As time went on the tavern became a permanent institution all over Europe. There were many versions: inns, pubs, cabarets, dance halls, and “meetinghouses.”

Neighbors gathered at these establishments to exchange the latest news and gossip over a mug or a tankard.

In cities men of similar interest met for a round of drinks and good talk. The tavern was a place to enjoy life, to socialize, to exchange ideas and to be stimulated.

The spread of the tavern and its gradual rose to the status of a social stage and a necessary meeting place, a forum for conversation, are features of the early modern era.

The building of taverns and refreshment places along the main roads and in the suburbs of large cities and the appearance of the scourge of drunkenness, began to be denounced by the moral authorities on society.

When European immigrated to America. They brought the tavern with them. It was considered essential to a town’s welfare to have a palace providing drink, lodging and food.

In Wisconsin, in 1840 the first house built by a man named Lamb, who conducted it as a tavern in the area later named Green Bay near Fox River.

Often tavern was built near church so that parishioners could warm up quickly after Sunday services held in unheated meetinghouses.

Taverns became popular and not only places where hungry and tired travelers could sup and sleep. In many cases, they were political gathering places. For instance, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at the India Queen Tavern in Philadelphia; the Green Tavern, Boston, was the site of the formation of the Ohio Land Company.

Merchants held regular meetings in taverns and sometimes even courts and legislature did also.
The Development of Tavern