Leopold Hawelka (April 11, 1911 – December 29, 2011) was an Austrian coffee house owner. He and his wife, , founded and operated

Café Hawelka Café Hawelka () is a traditional Viennese café located at Dorotheergasse 6 in the Innere Stadt, the first district of Vienna, Austria. History The Café Hawelka was opened by Leopold Hawelka in 1939. Hawelka had previously operated the Kaff ...

(''"Künstlerkaffeehaus Hawelka"'').

Life and career

Hawelka was born in Staatz-Kautendorf. His parents were of

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

n ancestry. His father was a shoemaker from Jáchymov near Osová Bítýška in

. At Leopold's age of 14, the family settled in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and he began to work in the Deierl restaurant, where he met Josefine Danzberger. They married in 1936 and opened their first café, Kaffee Alt Wien, on the Bäckerstrasse. They later opened a new café,

, on Dorotheergasse. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the Hawelkas were not able to operate their business. After the war, in September 1945, the Hawelkas reopened their café, the building of which survived the war largely intact. In the early post-war years, the Hawelka's clientele still consisted of pensioners, traders from the nearby Dorotheum and former aristocrats who had been forced to leave their homes. The Hawelkas supplied their locale with fig coffee, alcoholic beverages and cigarettes via surreptitious traders. Leopold Hawelka took care of the guests until his old age, received them personally, showed them to their seats and said goodbye to them again. He not only made sure that his two children, who grew up in the pub, greeted the guests in a friendly manner and did not disturb them, but also that gentlemen did not address ladies. Such were banned from the premises by him.Herta Hawelka: (PDF auf ''reisegourmet.at;'' undatiert; 18 kB).2. Jänner 2012. Josefine Hawelka died in March 2005. Their son, Günther Hawelka, continued baking the café's speciality,

Buchteln Buchteln (from Czech , pl. , also in German: pl., sing. ; also , , ), are sweet rolls made of enriched yeast dough, filled with powidl, jam, chocolate, ground poppy seeds or quark, brushed with butter and baked in a large pan so that they stic ...

pastries, using his mother's recipe. Leopold turned 100 on April 11, 2011.

References

External links

Leopold Hawelka on Café Hawelka's website
(German) 1911 births 2011 deaths Businesspeople in coffee Austrian restaurateurs Austrian people of Czech descent Austrian centenarians Men centenarians {{Austria-bio-stub