Three hundred years ago, during the Age of Enlightenment, the coffee house became the center of innovation.

The remark links the rise of European coffeehouses in the late 17th and early 18th centuries with the social infrastructure of the Enlightenment. Coffeehouses functioned as relatively open, mixed-class venues where news, pamphlets, scientific ideas, and commercial information circulated quickly—an alternative to courtly or ecclesiastical settings. Calling them a “center of innovation” emphasizes that innovation is not only a matter of solitary genius but also of institutions and habits of conversation: caffeine, print culture, and public debate reinforcing one another. The quote also implicitly suggests a modern analogy—today’s innovation hubs (labs, coworking spaces, online forums) echo the coffeehouse as a networked space where ideas are tested, contested, and spread.