Reconstruction of a Roman thermopolium (fast food shop) on display at the Archaeological Museum of Aosta, Italy.
In the ancient Greco-Roman world, a thermopolium, or restaurant, was literally “a place where H๏τ food is sold,” in other words, a commercial establishment where it was possible to purchase ready-to-eat food.
A typical thermopolium consisted of a small room attached to a house but accessed from outside the house, with a distinctive wall bench at the front.
The more spectacular thermopoliums were decorated with frescoes. These frescoes depicted a number of mythological and religious images, as well as images and scenes from daily life in the ancient city. But these frescoes also served a practical function. The images depicted in the fresco also showed things being sold -fish, poultry, bread-in thermopolium, similar to modern advertising signs.
