Page 59 - Tropic Magazine Issue 19

TROPIC • OPINION

Third places

MEETING OF MINDS
A brief history of restaurants
and cafes, and why they’re so
important to us today.
Restaurants and cafés are one of Hanging out at The Chambers
France’s great exports to the world
and it’s Napoleon and the Battle of
Waterloo that we must thank. In from a menu and offered flexible meal what a useful concept in a country
the 1760s, when urban centres were hours compared to the much stricter building new urban settlements”. By
struggling with sanitation, illnesses innkeeper of yore. the 1820s, restaurants were common
such as consumption (an old medical As people started to get healthier, the in New York and Boston and the style
term generally associated with menu changed to include the good of eating spread across the rapidly
tuberculosis) were common. So, food and wine the French are famous developing United States and further
people went to the earliest restaurants for. Restaurants became a place to be to South America.
- not to eat, but to “restore”. seen, to socialise and to talk business. Today, in my industry of town
The word restaurant comes from the Napoleon famously said: “Let them planning and design, we call
French verb “se restorer” which means restaurants and the places where
to restore or to refresh. People with we go to socialise or do business as
consumption were too weak to digest “third places”. They are not home
food so the main dish was bouillon, and they are not the office. Yet they
a flavourful broth. The restaurant are comfortable. These third places
concept was innovative because for are critical for a range of reasons,
the first time, service was offered at including innovation. Most of our
small separate tables rather than a good ideas are generated before and
host table; customers could choose after work, not in the workplace. Think
of it as the bump factor. If you can
bump into someone for five minutes
in the street or for a chat over coffee,
these informal exchanges of ideas can
cover anything from tips to manage

eat, let them drink, let them dance”.
What he also said was - no politics. These third places are critical
Restaurants are not places to plan
rebellions. Instead, restaurants for a range of reasons.
became places of indulgence, a place
to let off steam and relax.
Then the Napoleonic era ended in
1815 with the battle of Waterloo, the kid’s sniffles to the new app you
which involved troops from around discovered - or your new idea.
the world. After the battle, soldiers Restaurants and cafes are so
returned home saying “in Paris they important for how ideas are
have these things called restaurants” exchanged and how we see ourselves.
and the British responded with “those Thankfully, Cairns is blessed with
French… they are so uncivilised that an impressive collection of cafes and
they don’t even eat dinner at home”. restaurants to serve this purpose.
And that was the end of the idea in
England, for the time being. On the MORE: planztp.com
other hand, the Americans said “well,

59 • tropicnow.com.au