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Comment by tetromino_ | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure about that. Since ancient times there were places where you could pay for food, but that was always a side business of an establishment whose main purpose was either (a) selling alcohol (or, in some places, coffee or tea) or (b) providing lodging for travelers.

I suspect that an establishment whose main purpose is selling food to order may be a fairly recent innovation.

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It is pretty well accepted that Pompeii had businesses that primarily served prepared food (https://pompeiisites.org/en/comunicati/the-ancient-snack-bar...), so they are at least 2000 years old.

Also, a business that sells meals and also sells lodging or coffee is definitely still a restaurant.

Not sure if it would fit the definition of a restaurant we have today but a thermopolium was a shop where you would buy food. I'm not sure how widespread the concept was, though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium

> Since ancient times there were places where you could pay for food, but that was always a side business of an establishment

I don't think that's correct: They've excavated fast-food joints from under the ashes of Pompeii. There's nothing to say a business like that needs to be a side hustle of anything else.

Street food vendors go back millennia. They’ve never been called restaurants but they’ve always been in the primary business of selling food.

The main difference a restaurant brings is the addition of a seating / dining space. I strongly doubt that extra space for patrons to eat is a recent innovation.

Coffee is Ethiopia, came with the Ottomans to Europe, tea came from Chine with the British or the Silk Road. Either of them post dates the Romans.

> I suspect that an establishment whose main purpose is selling food to order may be a fairly recent innovation.

It's not; every city has always had them. Food is actually far more important than alcohol is.

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