… Coffeehouses were key centres of sociability in eighteenth-century Britain. They played an important role both as real spaces for social interaction and as virtual places in which normative ideals of urban and polite sociability were … as the alehouse or the tavern, the rise of the coffeehouse is now best understood as the emergence of a complementary sociable institution. Places > Institutions Places > Food & Drink venues Keywords Coffeehouses Drinking Public sphere … famous Club in the age of George III, clubs and coffeehouses played a complementary role in satisfying the need for sociable spaces. 9 9 . Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies 1580-1800: The Origins of an Associational World, …