College Street Coffee House

Overview

The Indian Coffee House on College Street, popularly known as the College Street Coffee House, is a historic café located in central Kolkata, West Bengal. Situated opposite Presidency University and close to the University of Calcutta, it has long served as a meeting place for students, academics, writers, journalists, artists and political activists. The establishment is part of the chain run by the worker-managed Indian Coffee Workers' Co-operative Society.

Key facts

Name	Indian Coffee House, College Street
Type	Café / coffee house
Location	College Street, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Operator	Indian Coffee Workers' Co-operative Society
Neighbouring institutions	Presidency University, University of Calcutta, Sanskrit College, Hindu School, Albert Hall building

Background

The café occupies the upper floor of the Albert Hall building on Bankim Chatterjee Street, just off College Street in the heart of Kolkata's college and book-market district. The Albert Hall, built in the late nineteenth century, had earlier been a venue for public lectures and gatherings frequented by figures of the Bengal Renaissance. A coffee house was first opened in the building under the Coffee Board's Coffee House scheme during the colonial period.

History

The Coffee Board operated a network of Coffee Houses across India from the 1930s and 1940s onward. After the Board began closing several outlets in the late 1950s, the workers organised themselves into co-operatives. The College Street outlet came under the management of the Indian Coffee Workers' Co-operative Society, which continues to run it as part of the wider Indian Coffee House chain.

Through the second half of the twentieth century, the establishment became closely associated with Bengali intellectual and cultural life. Writers, poets, filmmakers, journalists and student activists were regular patrons, and the café was associated with the cultural milieu of figures such as Manna Dey, whose Bengali song Coffee Houser Sei Adda Ta (lyrics by Gauriprasanna Mazumder, music by Suparnakanti Ghoshal) memorialised the gatherings of an earlier generation of regulars.

Significance

The College Street Coffee House is regarded as one of the iconic adda spaces of Kolkata, where extended group conversation on literature, politics, cinema and current affairs is a recognised social practice. Its proximity to several leading educational institutions and to the College Street book market — one of the largest second-hand book markets in the world — has reinforced its role as a hub of student and literary culture in eastern India.

The interior, with its high ceiling, ceiling fans, wooden chairs and uniformed waiters wearing turbans and cummerbunds, is itself often cited as a heritage feature of the city. Renovation work has been undertaken on the building and the café over the years to preserve its character.

References

Wikidata entry: Q4711938