In the ancient Greco-Roman world, a thermopolium, from Greek θερμοπώλιον, i.e. cook-shop, literally "a place where hot is sold", was a commercial establishment where it was possible to purchase ready-to-eat food. In Latin literature, they would also be called popina, caupona, hospitium or stabulum, but archaeologists call them all thermopolium. The forerunner of today's restaurant, the items served at the thermopolia are sometimes compared to modern fast food. These places were mainly used by those who simply could not afford a private kitchen, often inhabitants of insulae, sometimes leading them to be scorned by the upper class.
Design
A typical thermopolium would consist of a small room attached but not accessible to a house with a distinctivemasonry counter in the front. An example of this can be seen in Ostia in the House of the Painted Vaults. Embedded in this counter were earthenware jars used to storedried food like nuts. A dolium in the thermopolium attached to the House of Neptune and Amphitrite in Herculaneum had the carbonized remains of nuts. Fancier thermopolia would also be decorated with frescoes. Well-preserved ruins of thermopolia can be seen in Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia.
Thermopolium of Asellina
The Thermopolium of Asellina is one of the most complete examples of a thermopolium in Pompeii. Complete jugs and dishes were found on the counter, as well as a kettle filled with water. The ground floor in the Thermopolium of Asellina was used for people to eat and drink, and some stairs led to guest rooms on the second floor. It had a typical structureconsisting of a wide doorway open to the street, a counter with holes where four jars were set into it for food or wine. It had shrines for the Lares, Mercury and Bacchus, as these were the most important gods for this occupation. Upstairs, there were guest rooms as well, so this may have also been used as an Inn; however, some think that this may have been a brothel due to the names of many women written as a part of an election notice on one of the outsidewalls of the Thermopolium. Another theory is that these were the slave-girls who worked as barmaids. Behind the bar were remains of wooden racks suspended from the ceiling to stack amphorae.
