Brasserie" is French, literally, "brewery", from Middle French brasser "to brew", from Old French bracier, from Vulgar Latin braciare, of Celtic origin. Its first usage in English was in 1864.[2]
The origin of the word probably stems from the fact that beer was brewed on the premises rather than brought in: thus an inn would brew its own beer as well as supply food and invariably accommodation too. In 1901 Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language defined "brasserie" as "in France, any beer-garden or saloon".[3] In 2000 The New Penguin English Dictionary included this definition of "brasserie": "a small informal French-style restaurant