Intangible Cultural Coffee

I like stories to demonstrate the American Dream is alive and well.  Ten years ago a New York City husband and wife scraped together their savings (borrowing even more from friends) to open a coffee shop called Maman.  The couple put in eighty-hour weeks, passed up vacations, and kept paychecks to a minimum to give their little cafe a fighting chance.  A decade later, Maman is doing pretty well, with 34 locations and annual revenues of fifty million dollars.

In Vienna, Austria, just a short walk from the magnificent cathedral of St. Stephen, you’ll find another coffee shop called Conditorei Sluka (or “Sluka” for short).  It’s the only location and its revenues are nowhere near $50 mil.  But Sluka doesn’t care about making a fortune.  They’re focused on delivering the quintessential Viennese Coffee House experience instead, which my wife and I were lucky enough to sample on our recent Danube River cruise.

With all due respect to the American Dream, sitting down to coffee at Maman will never come as close as a whisper to a cup at Sluka, no matter the amount of money invested or the number of locations opened.  Consider, Vienna opened its first coffee house in 1685, almost three hundred years before Starbucks landed in Seattle.  How can you possibly replicate that kind of history in a modern-day franchise?

Our “back room” seating at Sluka

What makes the Viennese Coffee House experience incomparable?  For starters, the best of the Houses are still in their original locations in the city, which means surrounds of grand eighteenth-century architecture: high sky-lit ceilings, soaring columns and arches, elegant mirrored panels on the walls, and softly lit rooms.  The marble-topped tables are furnished with upholstered couches and dark wooden chairs of the period.  And the classical music you’ll hear – never too loud to be distracting – is often live from a nearby piano.

You could remove all of this “window dressing”, and coffee in Vienna still might be unmatched.  My wife and I went to Sluka on our tour guide’s recommendation, after several hours of sightseeing on foot.  We were just looking for a snack and a few moments of rest.  On our guide’s suggestion, we sat down at a table way in the back, in a cozy nook of a room that felt miles from the streets outside.

Our selections

A smartly-dressed waiter took our coffee order from the several pages of the menu, then guided us to the nearby pastry case so we could point to our choices; Apfelstrudel, Linzer torte, or dozens of other cakes and tarts looking as if they’d been made just moments before in the nearby kitchen.  A short while later our order arrived; the coffee in china cups, the pastries on matching plates, all dolled up with tall glasses of water, logo napkins, and individual silver trays.  It was the most elegant presentation of coffee we’d ever been served.

The kitchen at Sluka, steps from our table

At our waiter’s insistence, we relaxed at our table after paying the bill so we could wait out a passing thunderstorm.  We watched nearby patrons enjoying their conversations or reading one of the many newspapers the coffee house makes available.  We listened to the music.  Instead of pulling out our phones we simply breathed in the atmosphere of this most satisfying respite.  In a nutshell, this is the Viennese Coffee House experience, as it has been for hundreds of years.  Stop in and take a seat.  Enjoy exquisite coffee and pastries.  Socialize or read.  And forget about the world beyond the windows for a little while.  It’ll be there whenever you’re ready to go back.

The Viennese Coffee House experience is so distinctive it earns a place – per the United Nations – on a listing of Elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage.  For other examples, think Swiss watches, French perfumes, or German church organs.  We’re talking about physical representations here; those which you might naturally associate with a country or people.  America likes its coffee (and food) fast and to-go, while Austria prefers it slow and sit-down.  I’m not claiming one approach is necessarily better than the other.  I’ll just say instead; I can’t wait to go back to Vienna someday.

Some content sourced from the CNBC Make It article, “Couple spent ‘all of our money’ to open a New York cafe…”, the Conditorei Sluka website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

22 thoughts on “Intangible Cultural Coffee”

    1. I wish we had more time for Vienna’s coffee houses, but as you know Viking keeps things very much on schedule. Safe to say we’ll go back to Vienna some day on our own itinerary.

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  6. It’s been a while since I was in Austria but I liked that the pace was slower and taking time out for cake or pastry in the middle of the afternoon was delightful. I am sorry I never visited Vienna. The torte looks lovely as does the presentation and that is a huge coffee house. Earlier today, while perusing the Accuweather site for our potential bad weather I read an article that Vienna ranks #1 as most-liveable city in the world. Here is the story: https://www.accuweather.com/en/travel/the-worlds-most-liveable-cities-for-2024/1665439

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    1. Our tour guide made mention of the “most-livable” ranking, even if Vienna is a very expensive city in which to live. He then said Vienna falls to the bottom when it comes to “most-friendly”, which brought a laugh but also several nods. The Austrians (and Germans) are notorious for their hard shells and stern expressions. Once you break through however, they’re some of the nicest people we’ve ever met.

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      1. How nice you already knew that stat was visiting Vienna! I found the Austrians very personable. We stayed in a chalet in the mountains with wonderful hosts. It was a small place and she ran the place and made the meals, while he was in charge of the farm. We had fresh eggs, butter, milk and he’d drive the herd up to the mountain every morning once it was light – nothing like those heavy cowbells suspended on the Tyrolian flowered collars going past your window at daybreak. 🙂

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  7. I keep getting recommended the CNBC (I think) Youtube video about the couple from Maman and how they made it. I’ll have to watch it now! We had one night in Vienna and an early flight so didn’t get a chance to try the coffee. Guess I’ll have to go back!

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    1. I hope you’ll try Maman and post about it because it’s a great success story (a Canadian, a Frenchwoman, and the American Dream!) They started hitting it big from a family cookie recipe and grew the business from there. Even though Maman now feels like big business, the attention to detail suggests it would be a great place to stop in for coffee.

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    1. I’m sure there were many options on the menu besides coffee drinks but who knows; it was all in German! Hence we pointed to – instead of tried to pronounce – our dessert choices 🙂

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    1. I’d love to take a tour of the city’s most famous coffee houses from someone who really knows them. According to Wikipedia there’s at least a dozen worth seeing!

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  11. I meet various friends at various coffee shops around town, but nothing as elegant as that Viennese shop. And I’ve yet to find one playing classical music! Just recently Z. and I met at an old house that had been turned into a coffee shop. We chose a little table under the stairs and enjoyed a cozy, semi-private spot. I don’t even remember the music. That indicates it wasn’t too loud, whatever the genre–that’s a plus! I may have to settle for cozy instead of elegant.

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    1. “Cozy” seems a fitting description for coffee shops in our relatively young country. Classical music seems fitting in Vienna (esp. w/ Mozart as a favorite son) with so much preserved history. Maybe in another hundred years our shops will deserve to be called “houses”.

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  12. I spent a semester in Austria. A friend said we absolutely had to have espresso while in Vienna because that’s the place, in all the world, to do it. That’s the only time I’ve had espresso. (It was strong and bitter. I was not a coffee drinker.) I WISH I knew where we had that coffee. It would be wild if it had been here. Alas, That was 25 years ago, so… :/

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