A tavern is, loosely, a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and, more than likely, also be served food, though not licenced to put up guests. The word derives from the Latin taverna whose original meaning was a shed or workshop. The distinction of a tavern from an inn, bar or pub varies by location, in some places being identical and in others being distinguished by traditions or by legal license.

Gathering in a tavern to drink beer or other alcoholic drinks is a longstanding social tradition dating at least to Sumer (3500 BC); in Sumer the tavern keeper was traditionally a woman but in other places and times women could be completely excluded from tavern culture.

They have existed in England from as early as the 13th Century and were often kept by women usually known as Ale-wives. In the mid-14th century there were only three in London. An act of 1552 allowed forty in London, eight in York, six in Bristol and many more in towns all across England.

By the 19th century they became commonly known as pubs.

With the arrival of the Motor Car in the 1930s new "Road Houses" and large "Public Houses" appeared along the main roads of Britain, often with bright mock-Tudor lounges