The History of the Viennese Coffee House: from 1683 to Today

Few cities have made as much of coffee as Vienna. What is a quick drink elsewhere became an institution here over the centuries: the coffee house. Its history tells of a siege and of legends, of poets and chess players, of decline and return.

It also explains why a Viennese coffee house still feels different from any other café in the world: as if time here had learned to move more slowly. A stroll through more than three centuries.

How coffee came to Vienna

In the 17th century, coffee was something foreign in Central Europe: expensive, dark, a little suspect. It reached Europe along the trade routes of the Ottoman Empire and the Levant — and with it an idea that had long been self-evident in Istanbul: that you don't drink coffee alone at home, but together, in a public place.

In other cities this idea had already arrived. Venice, London and Paris had their first coffee houses back in the 17th century. Vienna came later — but it would make more of the coffee house than almost any other city. The ground was prepared by an event that had burned itself deep into the city's memory.

The legend of 1683 — and the truth of 1685

The loveliest version of the story is a legend. When the second Ottoman siege of Vienna was repelled in 1683, sacks of unfamiliar brown beans are said to have been left behind in the abandoned camp. Georg Franz Kolschitzky, a scout with a gift for languages, supposedly recognised them as coffee, received them as a reward and turned them into one of the first Viennese coffee houses.

The tale is catchy — too catchy. In this form it was written down in 1783, for the centenary of the relief of the siege, by Gottfried Uhlich and further popularised in the 19th century; it was cemented with monuments and street names. Kolschitzky became a founding figure because a young coffee-house nation needed a good story.

What is documented is more sober: in 1685 the Armenian Johannes Diodato received the first imperial privilege to serve coffee publicly in Vienna. Armenian and Greek merchants brought both the drink and the necessary know-how. That is where the documented history of the Viennese coffee house begins — less heroic than the legend, but just as consequential.

From novelty to necessity: the 18th century

In the 18th century the number of coffee houses grew quickly. The exotic became a meeting point, and the meeting point a necessity. People read newspapers here, played billiards and cards, negotiated business and traded news — at a time when there was neither a telephone nor a newspaper subscription in every home.

The coffee house became the city's news centre and a living room for everyone who didn't have one or wanted to leave theirs. Citizens and officials, artists and merchants sat under the same chandelier — a rare social mix. The waiter, the "Herr Ober", became a figure of trust whom you knew by name.

Even then, what still sets the tone today took shape: people came not just to drink, but to stay. A single coffee bought hours of space, warmth and company. That quiet agreement — pay little, be allowed to stay long — is still the heart of the culture.

The golden age of the coffee house literati

The Viennese coffee house flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Splendid houses with marble tables, velvet benches and mirrors rose along the new Ringstraße — and some of them became legendary addresses of literature.

Around 1890 the "Young Vienna" group gathered at Café Griensteidl — writers such as Arthur Schnitzler and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. When the Griensteidl was demolished in 1897, Karl Kraus wrote his famous, mocking piece "Die demolierte Literatur" ("Literature Demolished"). The scene moved on, above all to the Café Central.

There, coffee-house literature became a legend for good. Peter Altenberg is said to have given the Central as his postal address, so much was it his home. Alfred Polgar wrote a wry "Theory of the Café Central", describing the house as an entire worldview. And a certain Mr Bronstein — later known as Leon Trotsky — played chess here. The coffee house was editorial office, salon and writing desk in one: warm, cheap and always open to those whose flats were cold and whose ideas were large.

Decline and return

The 20th century brought ruptures. Two world wars, inflation, displacement and the loss of many regulars hit the coffee houses hard. After 1945 came new competition: fast espresso bars on the Italian model, television that kept people at home in the evenings, and a lifestyle that put haste over leisure.

There is a sad word for these years: the "coffee house dying". Numerous storied houses closed for good, others were rebuilt until little of their character remained. But the culture did not vanish entirely. From the 1980s onwards, awareness grew of what Vienna possessed in the coffee house: not a mere type of establishment, but a way of life. Old houses were preserved and restored, new ones opened in their spirit.

2011: when cosiness becomes intangible cultural heritage

That appreciation found an official expression in 2011: Viennese coffee house culture was added to Austria's UNESCO inventory of intangible cultural heritage. What is recognised there is not a recipe or a single building, but a practice — the lingering, the newspaper-reading, the right to sit for a long time over a single cup.

It is an unusual honour: it recognises not the architecture but an attitude towards time. And that is exactly what the Viennese coffee house is about.

What remains of the history

You don't need to know the history to enjoy a Viennese coffee house. But it explains why the place feels the way it does: as if time moved at a different speed here. How this tradition lives on today — from the classic Melange to the new wave of specialty coffee — you can read in our overview of Viennese coffee house culture.

Here in the 4th district, we try to carry exactly this heritage forward: good coffee, honest breakfast and the old, generous permission to stay. You'll find what's in the cup today on our menu.