The new Ströck Feierabend, a spin-off of the Austrian bakery chain Ströck, is a bakery wearing lipstick and a place where vodka is served alongside baked goods.
With the high and ever increasing density of competition in Vienna’s bakery capital of the third district, Ströck has attempted to differentiate themselves with their new sleek looking, tall ceilinged bakery/bar/café hybrid on the tail end of Landstraßer Hauptstraße. There are no less then 13 bakeries on this one single street and it seems that last winter’s opening of Joseph Brot gave Ströck’s owners a slight nervous tingling sensation in their midsection and apparently also gave them the feeling it was time to wrap their bakery goods up in a whole new concept: take the traditional Austrian bakery serve of coffee and cake; insert alcohol and create a warm, cozy, fresh and trendy ambience to house it all in.
After quite a long suspense-filled wait on February 3rd Ströck Feierabend opened the doors of their polished corner venue. Conforming to all the latest style requirements: bio-friendly, simple clean-cut décor it is already a hit with the consumers of the 3rd district that always seem to have a desperate hunger for just about everything that’s shiny and new. It’s understandable. More than 10 years ago, Rochus opened and has been packed with people ever since. It had the monopoly on handsome places combining food, drinks, fancy breakfasts and a good show-off opportunity in the 3rd district. Not anymore. Now Landstraße has Feierabend.
After peering in their factory-styled windows that surround the place on the way home from work, I became intrigued by its ability to consistently attract a full house since opening. I also immediately stumbled with surprise over the vodka in their menu … I had no choice – I had to try vorglühen at a bakery.
On a calm and crisp Viennese evening, two friends and I joined the clientele filling the place – a similar to Rochus mix of middle-aged self-proclaimed movers and shakers, though maybe a bit younger and a little less over confident – for a few glasses of fancy liquor. We comfortably stood at the bar and were served by highly attentive and friendly waiters – a thing I still need to wrap my head around being accustomed to the typical Viennese idea of ‘customer service’.
The drinks are neat, though Hillinger’s Puriste Vodka is not really my cup of … vodka, but that’s a story for another time. For people who don’t share my excessive taste in hard liquor, they also serve your usual beer, a good selection of Austrian wines and a few tasty cocktails. Oh, and they also serve overly fancy tapas-style, brotzeit food, if you’re interested in eating. I wasn’t. Their cake selection also extends to a more sophisticated selection compared to Ströck’s typical take-away pastries. The lemon tarts, for example, will have your legs swinging from their high bar-stools.
After filling our stomachs and veins with the amount of alcohol needed on a Friday night, we left at 12:30 am. Yes, this bakery-cafe-bar mutation stays open until midnight every day – another oddity in this city of shops that close too early. I’ll probably be stumbling over their threshold a few more times. Maybe by accident. Maybe because I feel the urgent need for a vodka and slice of cake on my way home.
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