The term Coffee Palace was primarily used in Australia to describe the temperance hotels which were built during the period of the 1880s although there are references to the term also being used, to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom. They were hotels that did not serve alcohol, built in response to the temperance movement and, in particular, the influence of the Independent Order of Rechabites in Australia. James Munro was a particularly vocal member of this movement. Coffee Palaces were often multi-purpose or mixed use buildings which included a large number of rooms for accommodation as well as ballrooms and other function and leisure facilities.
The construction of buildings for the temperance movement coincided with an economic boom in Australia and the use of richly ornamental High Victorian architecture.
Subsequently, many such hotels were given prestigious names such as "Grand" or "Royal" and were designed in the fashionable Free Classical or Second Empire styles.
The movement reached its height in Victoria and particularly Melbourne during the Victorian gold rush.
Catering for families, the Coffee Palaces were most popular in the coastal seaside resorts and for inner city locations popular with interstate and overseas visitors.
Ironically as the temperance movement's influence waned, many hotels applied for liquor licences. Many were either converted into hotels or demolished; however, some fine examples still survive.
Read more about Coffee Palace: United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words coffee and/or palace:
“It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)
“In correct theology, the Virgin ought not to be represented in bed, for she could not suffer like ordinary women, but her palace at Chartres is not much troubled by theology, and to her, as empress-mother, the pain of child-birth was a pleasure which she wanted her people to share.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)