Café Procope: The Story of Paris’s Oldest Café

On December 18, 1752, Jean-Jacques Rousseau walked out of his own play. The Comédie-Française was staging his comedy Narcisse, he could not sit through it, and as soon as he left the theater he went into the café across the street, found a few equally bored acquaintances and admitted that the play was his. That café was the Café Procope.

Café Procope opened around 1686 on what is now the rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie in Paris. Its founder was a Sicilian named Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, and it is often called the oldest café in Paris. The documented story, with a theater across the street, Enlightenment writers, revolutionaries, a long closure and a 1957 comeback, is better than the slogan. Here is what the records show and which famous tales are legends.

Key takeaways

• The café was founded around 1686 by Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, a Sicilian in the Paris lemonade and coffee trade. One early coffee historian dated it to 1689.
• The Comédie-Française opened a theater directly opposite in April 1689 and stayed until 1770.
• Rousseau’s 1752 visit and a 1790 tribute to Benjamin Franklin are documented. Napoleon’s hat and Voltaire’s 40 cups a day are not.
• Today’s Le Procope is a restaurant that reopened in 1957, long after the original café closed.

In this article

1. A Sicilian in the Paris coffee trade
2. A theater moves in across the street
3. The Enlightenment regulars
4. Benjamin Franklin and the Procope
5. Revolution at the café door
6. Closure and revival
7. Legend vs documented fact
8. Visiting Le Procope today
9. Bring the Procope mood home
10. FAQ
11. Sources

A Sicilian in the Paris coffee trade

The founder’s origins are still argued over. A baptism record dated February 10, 1651 names him Francesco Cutò, and sources disagree on whether he came from Palermo or from Aci Trezza, a fishing village near Catania. In Paris he became Procopio dei Coltelli, and in 1702 he took the French name François Procope.

He arrived in the early 1670s, just as coffee was becoming a city novelty. In 1672 an Armenian named Pascal began selling coffee from a booth at the Saint-Germain fair, and Procopio is said to have worked for him before Pascal left for London around 1675. Procopio was a limonadier, a seller of lemonade and other refreshments, and coffee fit that trade perfectly.

Around 1686 he opened his own café on the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain. That is the date the restaurant uses and most accounts accept, though William Ukers’ classic 1922 coffee history gives 1689, and some accounts trace an earlier stall to about 1675. Later writers also crowned Procopio the inventor of gelato, a title that rests on thin evidence.

A theater moves in across the street

The café’s big break came in 1689. The actors of the Comédie-Française had bought a jeu de paume (an indoor court for the ancestor of tennis) on the same street, and on April 18, 1689 they opened their new theater there, directly opposite Procopio’s door. They performed there until March 31, 1770, which is why the street is now called rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie, the street of the old Comédie.

For eighty years, actors, playwrights and audiences crossed the road before and after performances. Ukers described the café as a gathering place for many of the century’s noted French actors, authors, dramatists and musicians.

Rousseau’s escape from Narcisse is the best-documented scene because he wrote it down himself. In his Confessions, he says he could not hold out to the end, went straight into the Café de Procope and found Boissy and other acquaintances who were probably as tired of the play as he was. He owned up to writing it on the spot, and later had it printed, judging that it read better than it played.

The Enlightenment regulars

Voltaire is the name most tied to the café. Ukers called him a constant patron and wrote that his marble table and chair were kept as relics. Diderot, d’Alembert and Rousseau are regularly named among the 18th-century customers too. In letter 36 of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721), a visitor describes a Paris house where coffee is made so well that it makes its drinkers witty, a line often read as a nod to the Procope.

Two Voltaire stories need a warning label. The claim that he drank 40 or 50 cups of coffee a day is repeated everywhere, but we found no reliable 18th-century source for it. His supposed quip that coffee must be a very slow poison, since it had not killed him after decades, was traced by Quote Investigator to a 1780 almanac that credited the writer Fontenelle. The Voltaire version appears only in 1807, almost 30 years after his death.

The idea that the Encyclopédie, which Diderot and d’Alembert began publishing in 1751, was conceived at a Procope table is also a tradition rather than a documented fact.

Benjamin Franklin and the Procope

Benjamin Franklin served as the American envoy in France from late 1776 to 1785 and was hugely popular there. Ukers wrote that his name was often spoken over the café’s coffee cups. Whether he was a regular is hard to prove, but what happened after his death is on record.

Franklin died in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790. On June 11, Mirabeau announced the news to the National Assembly, which voted three days of mourning. A group of philosophers who met in a back room of the Procope held their own tribute: Paris newspapers of June 1790 describe black drapes on the walls and a bust of Franklin crowned with oak leaves, above the Latin word VIR, “a man.”

Claims that Franklin prepared the 1778 Franco-American alliance at the café, or sketched the US Constitution there, are not documented. The Constitution was drafted in Philadelphia in 1787, two years after he left France.

Revolution at the café door

Even before 1789, according to the City of Paris Revolution trail, the Procope was nicknamed the “House of Commons” after the English parliament. During the Revolution it was also called the Café Zoppi, after the man who ran it, and revolutionaries such as Marat, Camille Desmoulins and Danton lived nearby.

Its public role is documented. In 1791, Voltaire’s table from the café joined the procession that carried his remains to the Panthéon, and on October 5 that year its regulars went to the Assembly to read a petition congratulating the deputies.

Other famous claims, such as the red Phrygian cap first appearing here, or orders for the August 10, 1792 attack on the Tuileries going out from its tables, belong to the café’s tradition. The sources that repeat them do not document them.

Closure and revival

The Procope had a second literary life in the 19th century, and its plaque names Verlaine, Anatole France and Gambetta among later visitors. But the business faded. Sources disagree on when the original café closed, with dates from 1872 to the 1890s, and Anatole France wrote that it had plenty of glory but no money.

The premises later housed a cheap Chartier bouillon canteen and, in the 1920s, a café called Au Grand Soleil. In 1957 they reopened as a restaurant under the Procope name. The street façade with its wrought-iron balconies and the matching roof were listed as a historic monument in 1962, and the rooms were redone in an 18th-century style in 1988–89. The name and the address go back to the 17th century, but today’s Le Procope is a restaurant, not the original café.

Café Procope: legend vs documented fact

Visiting Le Procope today

• Where: 13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie, 75006 Paris, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
• When: the official site lists daily opening from noon to midnight, plus a café lounge on weekday afternoons (3:30 to 5:30 pm) with no reservation needed. Check before you go.
• What to eat: classic French dishes the restaurant presents as historic, such as coq au vin and braised beef cheek.
• What to look for: the bicorne by the entrance (legend included), the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen written across the walls of one room, and the listed balconies outside. Then look across at number 14, where the Comédie-Française played from 1689 to 1770.

Bring the Procope mood home

Nobody recorded how Procopio brewed his coffee, so we won’t pretend to recreate it. The ritual is easier to copy: a small, strong cup, something sweet on the side and a long argument about a book or a play. Our French Roast, a dark roast of specialty-grade Central American coffee, pours a bold, smoky-sweet cup with bittersweet chocolate notes, low acidity and a heavy body. Or browse the Best Selling collection, with every bag roasted 1–5 days before delivery.

Café Procope FAQ

When did Café Procope open?

Around 1686, when Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened his café on the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain. A classic 1922 coffee history gives 1689, the year the Comédie-Française opened across the street.

Is Le Procope really the oldest café in Paris?

It is the best-known claimant, but the original café closed in the 19th century and today’s Le Procope reopened as a restaurant in 1957, so it has not run continuously since 1686.

Did Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin go to Café Procope?

Voltaire’s patronage is well attested. Franklin’s visits are harder to document, but a group meeting at the Procope held a tribute to him after his death in 1790.

Is Napoleon’s hat at Le Procope real?

A bicorne near the entrance is said to have been left by Napoleon as security for an unpaid bill. No document confirms the story, so enjoy it as a legend.

Sources

1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions, Book VIII, Project Gutenberg edition. gutenberg.org
2. William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922, Project Gutenberg edition. gutenberg.org
3. Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721), letter 36, German translation, Projekt Gutenberg-DE. projekt-gutenberg.org
4. Bob Ruppert, “France Pays Tribute to Benjamin Franklin,” Journal of the American Revolution, 2024. allthingsliberty.com
5. Editorial note on Franklin’s death and the French tributes, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 19, Founders Online, US National Archives. founders.archives.gov
6. Ville de Paris, Parcours Révolution, “The Café Procope, a cradle of freedom.” parcoursrevolution.paris.fr
7. French Ministry of Culture, Mérimée database, “Café Le Procope (ancien),” PA00088496. pop.culture.gouv.fr
8. Quote Investigator, “Coffee Is a Slow Poison,” 2018. quoteinvestigator.com
9. Le Procope, official website (address, hours, menu). procope.com
10. Paris Region tourist board, “The Procope.” visitparisregion.com
11. Atlas Obscura, entry on Napoleon’s hat at Le Procope. atlasobscura.com
12. Wikipedia, “Café Procope,” “Procopio Cutò” and “Salle de la rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” for the baptism record, name change, theater dates and later history, with their cited sources. wikipedia.org

Facts checked in October 2026.

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