I was drinking coffee at the cafetería/café (?)

Question

Hello there! This is my first question for you. I want to say in English "Estuve bebiendo café en la cafetería"

What word is better in American English?

I was drinking coffee at the cafetería/café (?)

Thank you!

Welcome to SpanishDict. - rac1, Mar 7, 2017

¡Bienvenido Antonnio, ¿de dónde eres, por favor? - FELIZ77, Mar 7, 2017

Answer 1

To me:

A cafeteria is a place to eat, often institutional, like a school, or hospital, where you take a tray down in front a line of food in reheating trays and they scoop what you pick onto your plate. I suppose in the ones made for adults you could get coffee.

A cafe is a trendy bistro that presumably serves coffee, and probably originally was used as a focus for that, but now has been co-opted for many places, like the hard rock cafe which seems more like a bar or pub to me.

Let me add the term "coffee shop" can be used for somewhere that focuses on coffee and maybe has pastries or maybe some simple foods.

I would tend to refer to starbucks as a coffee shop for instance.

Like Cafe Du Monde French Market Coffee here in New Orleans. - rac1, Mar 7, 2017

I agree with bosque but think that cafes are a couple of decades past "trendy." - jtaniel, Mar 7, 2017

I would never claim to be living in the modern era. :) - bosquederoble, Mar 7, 2017

Answer 2

The simple answer is that both ways are correct. You can drink coffee in either place. As bosquederoble has indicated, they are quite different places, with different functions, but both serve coffee.

I even drink it at home , and have been known to take it on bush walks . - ray76, Mar 8, 2017