The 'Club – das Wiener Kaffeehaus' campaign aims to support Vienna's world famous cafes that have fallen on hard times due to the Covid pandemic.
Traditional Viennese coffee houses are listed by UNESCO as 'Intangible Cultural Heritage'. Rather wonderfully, they are succinctly described as follows, "Where time and space are consumed, but only the coffee is found on the bill." The Viennese have enjoyed coffee & cake, newspapers & philosophy in their city since the late 1600s. They are an institution, each one effectively a democratic club which requires no membership; they are open to all for the price of a coffee.
But the pandemic of the past two years has not affected not only restaurants and bars – it's also threatened the existence of Vienna's coffee houses. Turnover for coffee houses is down more than 60%, according to public broadcaster ORF. The initiative 'Club - das Wiener Kaffeehaus' was formed in 2020 to support cafés endangered by the Covid crisis. With the campaign "We love our coffee house", the City of Vienna, Vienna Chamber of Commerce as well as private companies have already collected €100,000 in donations.
Customers are being encouraged to support the coffee houses as part of the campaign: If the customer pays with the help of the mobile payment app Bluecode, the café receives five euros from the initiative in addition to the bill. The subsidies are paid to the participating cafés on a monthly basis. In addition, three feasts at the renowned Café Landtmann, a favourite of Sigmund Freud, will be raffled off amongst guests who participate in the campaign. Find out more about the payment method here.
The initiative started on 15 January and will run until the donations have been distributed. In order to continue to support traditional Viennese coffee house culture in the future, other companies and friends of coffee houses are being invited to participate in the campaign.
