café society

plural café societies · alternative cafe society

1. countableuncountableEspecially from the late-19th century through the mid-20th century in Europe and America, a culture characterized by continual socializing in bistros, coffee shops, and nightclubs, sometimes extravagantly frivolous and sometimes intensely intellectual in nature but always high-spirited.

   Iran's cafe society has been targeted as a fertile breeding ground for dissidents.

   2013 January 23, “Iran's morality police crack down on coffee shops: Popular hangout for Tehrani intellectuals closes”, in The Guardian, UK, retrieved 26 May 2014

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   Manhattan café society provokes a lot of writing, most of it about as enduring as a café socialite's hangover.

   1938 Sept. 19, "Books: Caf" (book review of The Happy Island by Dawn Powell), Time (retrieved 26 May 2014)

   He was one of those who in the 1930's pioneered . . . candid shots of socialites and entertainers out-on-the-town and eager to be seen. . . . His photography became one of the elements on which café society thrived.

   1988 August 23, Wolfgang Saxon, “Obituary: Jerome Zerbe, 85, Photographer Of Café Society and a Columnist”, in New York Times, retrieved 26 May 2014

   This was the moment […] when he realised that the free-wheeling café culture of the 1930s or the 1950s – when Jean-Paul Sartre held court in Montparnasse – had vanished. Overall, he concludes (rightly, I think) that the French café is thriving but French café society is dead.

   2009 November 20, John Lichfield, “Cafe society is dead, but long live the cafe”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 26 May 2014