City Tavern: The Founding Table―Colonial Dining, Revolutionary History, and the Restaurant at the Center of It All

Several blocks from Independence Hall, City Tavern was a hub of life in colonial Philadelphia and its dining table an important political and social meeting place. Like George Washington’s “Rising Sun” chair and the desk where the Declaration of Independence was signed, the tavern table, and the patrons, meals, and discussions it witnessed, captures the imagination. From America’s early years, taverns were vital in urban spaces for sharing news, making business deals, holding club meetings, and discussing political issues. When a movement toward independence from Great Britain began to take hold in the eighteenth century, the central seaboard city of Philadelphia became a popular meeting location. By the 1770s, its residents saw the need for a grand, new tavern that could provide food and drink, overnight accommodations, and space for larger political and business discourse as well as social and cultural activities. Built through a subscription model funded by fifty-three of Philadelphia’s wealthiest and most socially connected men, City Tavern soon became an important meeting place for political discussion.