Houston's Cafe Culture

Houston's version of bohemia is Montrose, which, fittingly, has a very tight collection of cafes, coffee houses and tea rooms. By my definition, these "cafes", unlike restaurants, invite you to stay a long time, and create an environment ripe for discourse with your friends or neighboring diners. I think of Vienna in the inter-war years as the exemplar "Cafe Culture" environment; one story I've heard about Vienna is that coffeehouses at that time often had marble table tops -- either black or white. The mathematicians preferred the white marble top cafes, so they could discuss their theorems right on the tables. -- To fit my definition, all of the places mapped here are independent enterprises.

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