Vienna Underground

Visitors to Vienna will be told to make the most of the city’s famous Kaffeehaus scene—a diverse collection of cafes serving caffeinated delicacies and Austrian pastries. As a student in Vienna I became familiar with this charming world, but it wasn’t until I was working in Vienna that I discovered Hawelka.
Café Hawelka is a coffeehouse near Vienna’s Stefansdom, just off the bustling Graben. One might assume its location near the city center would guarantee a crowded atmosphere, but only once in my dozens of afternoon visits to Hawelka have I ever seen it busy.
When you walk into Hawelka, the dark wooden walls and marble-top tables invite you to sit and stay awhile. Patrons read newspapers and books, or carry on conversations with companions. A well-dressed and polite waiter will take your order—for me, it’s always a Melange, or a type of cappuccino—and then promptly leave you alone. He will soon return with a silver tray bearing your favorite coffee and a silver spoon. For the reader, the writer, the thinker, Hawelka is a space where no one hurries, but instead enjoys a moment of quiet reflection. There is something so luxurious about a coffeehouse experience, about the scandalous idea that you deserve an hour or more to enjoy coffee, a good book, and your own thoughts. And yet that coffee has only cost you a few Euros at the most.
One night my mother and I visited Hawelka in search of Buchteln. Buchteln is a classic Austrian yeast roll stuffed with plum preserves, and I’m afraid we made pigs of ourselves that night as we savored every crumb. As we huddled together over a plate of not-too-sweet pastry, I felt grateful to have shared that evening with her, to have shared a piece of Vienna with a very long and meaningful history. Though the business had endured a century of turmoil, it still engendered a feeling of collectivity. Even visitors were welcome at Café Hawelka.
At that point in time, Mr. Hawelka was still living and occasionally greeted guests who patronized his business. I saw him there one afternoon, dozing as he read a newspaper. He’d look up in time to raise a hand to a guest or to answer a ringing telephone. By then he was nearly 100 years old, and I could only imagine what he had seen in his lifetime. I stayed awhile that afternoon, knowing I was in the presence of a man whose history was deep. I think I also knew that I might not be lucky enough to see Leopold Hawelka in his own coffeehouse ever again, and in fact, I never did.