
Café Hawelka () is a traditional
Viennese café located at
Dorotheergasse 6 in the
Innere Stadt
The Innere Stadt (; Central Bavarian: ''Innare Stod'') is the 1st municipal district of Vienna () located in the center of the Austrian capital. The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expanded in 1850, the In ...
, the first district of
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, Austria.
History

The Café Hawelka was opened by
Leopold Hawelka
Leopold Hawelka (April 11, 1911 – December 29, 2011) was an Austrian coffee house owner. He and his wife, , founded and operated Café Hawelka (''"Künstlerkaffeehaus Hawelka"'').
Life and career
Hawelka was born in Staatz-Kautendorf. His pa ...
in 1939. Hawelka had previously operated the
Kaffee Alt Wien
Kaffee Alt Wien is a traditional Viennese café located at Bäckerstraße 9 in the Innere Stadt first district in Vienna, Austria.
It was established on 14 October 1922 and taken over in 1936 by Leopold Hawelka and his wife Josefine on the day a ...
on Bäckerstraße since 1936 and together with his wife Josefine took over the Café Ludwig in the Dorotheergasse in May 1939. This spot was originally the location of the "Chatham Bar" opened in 1906. For two decades in recent past it was wrongly believed that the original venue was called "Je t'aime-Bar". After the outbreak of
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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the Hawelka had to be closed, and in Fall 1945 it was reopened in the still largely intact building.
After the end of the period of occupation after 1955, the café quickly became a meeting point for writers and critics like
Heimito von Doderer,
Albert Paris Gütersloh
Albert Paris Gütersloh (born Albert Conrad Kiehtreiber; 5 February 1887 – 16 May 1973) was an Austrian painter and writer.
Gütersloh worked as actor, director, and stage designer before he focused on painting in 1921.
As a teacher of Ar ...
,
Hilde Spiel,
Friedrich Torberg and
Hans Weigel. After the closing of the Café Herrenhof in 1961, even more artists gathered here and it became a central meeting place in the art scene of the time. Regular guests included
Friedrich Achleitner,
H. C. Artmann,
Konrad Bayer,
Ernst Fuchs,
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Friedrich Stowasser (15 December 1928 – 19 February 2000), better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (), was an Austrian visual artist and architect who also worked in the field of environmental protection ...
,
Rudolf Hausner
Rudolf Hausner (4 December 1914, Vienna – 25 February 1995, Mödling) was an Austrian painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. Hausner has been described as a "psychic realist" and "the first psychoanalytical painter" (Gunter Engelhardt ...
,
Wolfgang Hutter Wolfgang Hutter (December 13, 1928 – September 26, 2014) was a painter, draughtsman, printmaker and stage designer. Hutter's imagery is characterised by an artificial paradise of gardens and fantastical fairytale-like scenes. His work is said to ...
,
Helmut Qualtinger,
Gerhard Rühm
Gerhard Rühm (born 12 February 1930 in Vienna) is an Austrian author, composer and visual artist.
Biography
Rühm studied the piano and music composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Following his studies he unde ...
, and
Oskar Werner. In the sixties and seventies the café experienced its peak. The artistic atmosphere of the café also inspired
Georg Danzer's 1976 song ''Jö, schau'' (''...was macht ein Nackerter im Hawelka'').
Josefine Hawelka died on 22 March 2005 after managing the café for sixty-six years with her husband. She had baked the place's specialty, its
Buchteln desserts (which are still made by Günther Hawelka, son of Josefine and Leopold according to the old recipe). Until his death in 2011,
Leopold Hawelka
Leopold Hawelka (April 11, 1911 – December 29, 2011) was an Austrian coffee house owner. He and his wife, , founded and operated Café Hawelka (''"Künstlerkaffeehaus Hawelka"'').
Life and career
Hawelka was born in Staatz-Kautendorf. His pa ...
could still be found sitting at its entrance, greeting guests.
Melange
Café Hawelka serves a ''Melange'' (similar to a
cappuccino
A cappuccino (; ; Italian plural: ''cappuccini'') is an espresso-based coffee drink that originated in Austria and was later popularized in Italy and is prepared with steamed milk foam ( microfoam).
Variations of the drink involve the use of ...
) at a cost of €4.20 (as of May 2018).
See also
*
List of restaurants in Vienna
Further reading
* Franz Hubmann: ''Café Hawelka - Ein Wiener Mythos'', Christian Brandstätter, 2001
* ''Königin Josefine. Die Hawelkas und ihr Café'' (2002), a
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
written and directed by
Andrea Eckert.
* Kurt-Juergen Heering: ''Das Wiener Kaffeehaus: Mit Hinweisen auf Wiener Kaffeehäuser'',
Insel Verlag, 2002
Der Standard''Josefine Hawelka an Herzversagen gestorben'', 30.03.2005
Der Standard''"Poiderl, was mach ma denn" - zum 95er'', Marijana Miljkovic, 12.04.2006
Der Standard''Literarisiertes Wohnzimmer'', Gregor Auenhammer, 24.12.2009
Der Standard''Ehrung für das "Hawelka"'', 14.12.2009
* ''Das Hawelka. Geschichte & Legende'', by Sonja Moser, 2009,
External links
www.hawelka.atHomepage of the café
www.café-hawelka.info.euMap and Information
Photos from the Hawelka
Poster of Coffee Places "where one can think"created b
Ariel Rubinstein
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cafe Hawelka
Coffeehouses and cafés in Vienna
Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt