Viennese coffee house culture

The Viennese café (Template:Ll: Wiener Kaffeehaus) is a typical institution of Vienna that still plays an important role in Viennese culture and tradition.

Coffee house culture: the ever-present newspaper

Uniqueness

Unlike some other café traditions around the world, it is completely normal for a customer to linger alone for hours and study the omnipresent newspaper. Along with coffee, the waiter will serve an obligatory glass of cold tap water and during a long stay will often bring additional water unrequested.

The furnishing of a Viennese café can vary from plush and comfy to coldly modern and stylish. The classic look includes Michael Thonet chairs and marble tabletops.

Many cafés provide small food dishes like sausages and also desserts like cakes and tarts.

In many classic cafés (for example Café Diglas, Café Central, Café Prückel) piano music is played in the evening and social events like literary readings are held.

History

Legend has it that soldiers of the Polish-Habsburg army, while liberating Vienna from the second Turkish siege in 1683, found a number of sacks with strange beans that they initially thought were camel feed and wanted to burn. The Polish king Jan III Sobieski granted the sacks to one of his officers named Jan Kulczycki, who started the first coffee house. After some experimentation, he added some sugar and milk, and the Viennese coffee tradition was born.

In reality, one of the first cafés was started by Armenian/Greek Johannes Diodato, a spy for the Austrians, who was given an initial coffee trade monopoly for his services.

The new drink was well received, and coffee houses began to pop up rapidly. In the early period, the various drinks had no names, and customers would select the mixtures from a colour-shaded chart.

The heyday of the coffee house was the turn of the nineteenth century when writers like Peter Altenberg, Alfred Polgar, Karl Kraus, Hermann Broch und Friedrich Torberg made them their preferred place of work and pleasure. Many famous artists, scientists, and politicians of the period such as Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Adolf Loos, Theodor Herzl and even Leon Trotsky were constant coffee house patrons. In Prague, Budapest, and Lviv (Lemberg) and other cities of Austro-Hungarian empire there were also many coffee houses according to the Viennese model.

With the rise of the Nazis and their prohibition of modern or, as it was called, degenerate art, the zenith of the coffee house came to an end. From 1950, the period of "coffee house death" or Kaffeehaussterben began, as many famous Viennese coffee houses had to close, perhaps due to the popularity of television or the appearance of modern espresso bars. Nevertheless, many of these classic Viennese spots still exist, and tourism and an renewed interest in their history have prompted a comeback.

Well-known coffee houses

In the First District, Inner City — 1. Bezirk (Innere Stadt)

• Bräunerhof, Stallburggasse 2 — Thomas Bernhard's favourite café in Vienna
• Café Central, im Palais Ferstel, Eingang Herrengasse 14 (Ecke Strauchgasse) — Peter Altenberg's favorite café and at times his primary address
• Café Demel, Kohlmarkt 14 — the most famous sweet bakery, less of a typical café
• Café Diglas, Wollzeile 10
• Café Einstein, Rathausplatz 4
• Café Griensteidl, Michaelerplatz 2 — newly opened at the site of the classic Café Griensteidl (1847-1897) in 1990
• Café Hawelka, Dorotheergasse 6
• Café Korb, Brandstätte 9
• Café Landtmann, Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring 4
• Café Mozart, Albertinaplatz 2 (Albertina)
• Café Museum, Operngasse 7
• Café Prückel, Stubenring 24 (at the corner of Dr. Karl-Lueger-Platz)
• Café Raimund, Museumstraße 6
• Café Sacher, Philharmonikerstraße 4
• Café Schottenring, Schottenring 19
• Café Schwarzenberg, Kärntner Ring 17 (at Schwarzenbergplatz)
• Café Tirolerhof, Führichgasse 8
• Kleines Café, Franziskanerplatz 3

In other districts

• Café Berg, 9. Bezirk, Berggasse 8
• Café Dommayer, 13. Bezirk, Dommayergasse 1-3/Johann-Strauß-Platz
• Café Eiles, 8. Bezirk, Josefstädter Straße 2
• Café Falk, 22. Bezirk, Wagramer Straße 137
• Café Florianihof, 8. Bezirk, Florianigasse 45
• Café Hummel, 8. Bezirk, Josefstädter Straße 66
• Café Ritter, 6. Bezirk, Mariahilferstraße 73, Ammerlingstraße corner
• Cafe Sperl, 6. Bezirk, Gumpendorfer Straße 11
• Café Stein, 9. Bezirk, Währinger Straße 6
• Café Weidinger, 16. Bezirk, Lerchenfelder Gürtel 1
• Café Weimar, 9. Bezirk, Währinger Straße 68, near the Volksoper opera house
• Café Wilder Mann, 18. Bezirk, Währinger Straße 85
• Café Westend, 7. Bezirk, Mariahilferstraße 128 (opposite the Westbahnhof train station)