Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Pasqua Rosée/archive1

Pasqua Rosée opened the first coffee-house in London and possibly Britain. He was born in the Republic of Ragusa (now southernmost Croatia). In 1651 he became the servant of Daniel Edwards, an English merchant of the Levant Company; Rosée's duties included preparing Edwards's daily coffee. After Edwards returned to London, he set up Rosée as the proprietor of a coffee-house near the Royal Exchange. As he was not a freeman of the City of London he was not able to trade; accordingly Edwards had Christopher "Kitt" Bowman—a freeman of the City—join Rosée as a partner. The last known reference to Rosée was in 1658, after which Bowman ran the coffee-house with his wife until his death in 1662. The building was destroyed in the 1666 Great Fire of London. On its location is a late nineteenth century structure housing—in the twenty-first century—a pub, the Jamaica Wine House; a commemorative plaque (shown) is now on the spot, unveiled in 1952—the tercentenary of the founding of Rosée's shop.