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The Mermaid Tavern was a tavern on Cheapside in London during the Elizabethan era. Many of the greatest intellectuals of the time often took up a drink in the cozy confines of the tavern.
Owned by Johanson Groiler, the tavern got its name when a drunken patron swore he saw a mermaid behind the bar counter. Upon further examination, the supposed mermaid was in fact a small dog that had escaped into the warmth of the tavern.
According to legend, one of the most famous patrons of the inn was the playwright William Shakespeare. It is said that the writer and his rival Ben Jonson would meet there for debates in which they discussed politics, religion, and literature. Shakespeare, though not as learned as Jonson, often won these debates because Jonson was more ponderous, going off on tangents that did not pertain to the topic at hand.
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