During the British occupation, the Merchants coffee house was a place of great activity. As before, it was the center of trading, and under the British régime it became also the place where the prize ships were sold. The Chamber of Commerce resumed its sessions in the upper long room in 1779, having been suspended since 1775. The Chamber paid fifty pounds rent per annum for the use of the room to Mrs. Smith, the landlady at the time.
In 1781 John Stachan, then proprietor of the Queen's Head tavern, became landlord of the Merchants coffee house, and he promised in a public announcement "to pay attention not only as a Coffee House, but as a tavern, in the truest; and to distinguish the same as the City Tavern and Coffee House, with constant and best attendance. Breakfast from seven to eleven; soups and relishes from eleven to half-past one. Tea, coffee, etc., in the afternoon, as in England." But when he began charging sixpence for receiving and dispatching letters by man-o'-war to England, he brought a storm about his ears, and was forced to give up the practise. He continued in charge until peace came, and Cornelius Bradford came with it to resume proprietorship of the coffee house.
Bradford changed the name to the New York coffee house, but the public continued to call it by its original name, and the landlord soon gave in. He kept a marine list, giving the names of vessels arriving and departing, recording their ports of sailing. He also opened a register of returning citizens, "where any gentleman now resident in the city," his advertisement stated, "may insert their names and place of residence." This seems to have been the first attempt at a city directory. By his energy Bradford soon made the Merchants coffee house again the business center of the city. When he died, in 1786, he was mourned as one of the leading citizens. His funeral was held at the coffee house over which he had presided so well.
The Merchants coffee house continued to be the principal public gathering place until it was destroyed by fire in 1804. During its existence it had figured prominently in many of the local and national historic events, too numerous to record here in detail.
Some of the famous events were: The reading of the order to the citizens, in 1765, warning them to stop rioting against the Stamp Act; the debates on the subject of not accepting consignments of goods from Great Britain; the demonstration by the Sons of Liberty, sometimes called the "Liberty Boys," made before Captain Lockyer of the tea ship Nancy which had been turned away from Boston and sought to land its cargo in New York in 1774; the general meeting of citizens on May 19, 1774, to discuss a means of communicating with the Massachusetts colony to obtain co-ordinated effort in resisting England's oppression, out of which came the letter suggesting a congress of deputies from the colonies and calling for a "virtuous and spirited Union;" the mass meeting of citizens in the days immediately following the battles at Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts; and the forming of the Committee of One Hundred to administer the public business, making the Merchants coffee house virtually the seat of government.