Since: 1876
For nearly 145 years, the famous Cafè Central has been one of the principal places tourists discover the panache of the old Viennese coffeehouse. We’re using fancy words like ‘panache’ because that is what best describes one of Vienna’s oldest traditional coffeehouses.
The cafè is situated on the ground floor of Palais Ferstel in the city center (hence, the name) and often has a line snaking out of its front entrance.
Many of Vienna’s famous personalities, out-of-the-box thinkers and authors (including the likes of Freud) have been regulars at the cafè. No doubt, one of the many reasons they came was for the extraordinary selection of extraordinary cakes. The ‘Centralists’, as the Café’s regulars were known as, came here because of the tranquillity, cigars, chess, billiards, and of course, the coffee. Writers and poets such as Alfred Polgar, Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and architects like Alfred Loos, and philosophers and revolutionists including Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin held court and traded in wild discussions at the tables at CC (yes, we’re regulars there for the cake and we’ve got our own nickname for the place!).
Throwback fact: While sipping on your Melange in the former stock market’s ground floor ,you are taken back in time to when writer Peter Altenberg happened to walk out without paying his bill. If you’re feeling daring, perhaps you can try the same*
*we, of course, do not promote such behaviour, but if you do try it, do send a video of the Viennese waiter chasing you up the street
