Right, Sandra! Thanks for catching that.

I see where I goofed. The first coffeehouse in London opened in 1652, and the next item in my original source states, "By 1700 there were nearly 2,000 coffee houses in London. King Charles II banned coffee houses because they were regarded as hotbeds of revolution; this nearly caused a revolution, so 11 days later, Charles rescinded the ban."

It doesn't say what year Charles II tried to close them down, but obviously it had to have been before 1685.

In the book I'm writing (about the folk scene in the Pacific Northwest during the Fifties and Sixties), I do a short bit on the history of coffeehouses. I cut-and-pasted what I posted above from what I had written for the book. I'm usually pretty good with English history and dates and such, but I missed that. Gotta go into my manuscript and correct it!!

Again, thanks for catching the boo-boo!

Don Firth