What Made Coffeehouse Culture Go Boom?

In a recent post about the gentrification of the urban sitcom, I discussed how the cafe became the ruling avatar of city life in the 1990s, especially after Central Perk coffeehouse was a major setting in the TV show “Friends.” But this is my own theory. There are many explanations out there for what triggered the explosion in coffeehouse culture. But it’s difficult to verify any of them, given that some of the best data on coffee consumption is expensive to access.

I tested out my hypothesis—that “Friends” triggered the proliferation of boutique coffee shops across the nation—on Facebook a few days ago, and found some agreement. My good friend Kenyon Farrow, an award-winning writer and advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness, who’s based in D.C., was with me on this, writing, “I think ‘Friends’ (and ‘Seinfeld’) are totally responsible for marketing cities to young white suburbanites, [which] helped fuel the market-demand side for gentrification to take place in the ‘90s and 2000’s.”