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Another hundred years after the coffee shop closed down... The famous chess and card cafe in Vienna closed down due to the epidemic.

Published: 2026-08-26 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/08/26, The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 has greatly changed the lifestyle of many people, and for the coffee industry as a whole, it has also been covered with a lot of uncertainty. In the context of the epidemic, the operation of the entire coffee industry came to an abrupt end, and there was even a "shop closure" crisis in the past year. Today

The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 has greatly changed the lifestyle of many people, and for the coffee industry as a whole, it has also been covered with a lot of uncertainty. In the context of the epidemic, the operation of the entire coffee industry came to an abrupt end, and there was even a "shop closure" crisis in the past year. In January, the Coffee Workshop reported that Huasen Cafe, the oldest coffee shop in Italy, may be closed when its operation expires this year.

A cafe, which has been operating for 300 years, has witnessed the changes of the times and created a lot of brilliant history, and finally collapsed under the epidemic, which made many netizens say that they were very distressed and helpless at the same time. Although netizens from all over the world interceded one after another as soon as the news came out, especially people in Italy and France wanted the government to help this legendary coffee shop, it was difficult for anyone under the epidemic, so the government did not give the shop rental support to Huasen Cafe. While everyone is still regretting the collapse of Legend Cafe, Cafe Sperlhof, a cafe in Vienna that opened in 1998, also announced that it would close on December 31, 2021 because of the epidemic. As soon as the news came out, the people of Vienna shouted: "Nostradamus!"

Cafe Sperlhof has been located on the second block since it opened in 1923 and has not changed its address. The most famous place of this old cafe is that it has 1200 kinds of board games, many of which are out of print and are not in production, so many of these games are like rare antiques that have been well collected by the shopkeeper. It is a chess and card museum with the shell of the cafe. For this reason, many movies and TV dramas come to take scenes. It is worth mentioning that another feature of this cafe is that payments can still be made using Austrian shillings, which have been out of use for many years.

Since the opening of the store, there have been a lot of gamers, game testers and game designers who love these antiques and try to compete with tourists or locals. Many guests said that Cafe Sperlhof is an expanded "warm living room" where we can drink coffee and play together, so that we can make more friends. In addition to board games, Cafe Sperlhof stores also put a lot of books, people do not want to socialize when you can choose to read books, increase their knowledge.

After announcing that it would be closed at the end of the year, the owner of the cafe for 35 years, the staff who had served for many years and the local people were all very reluctant to give up. After all, the store is the memory of several generations. The owner said that the cafe was very grateful to all the guests and nearby residents for so many years, and invited you to leave permanent memories with the last cup of coffee and the last game of chess before closing down.

If you want to run a cafe for nearly a hundred years, you can still retain local guests for a long time. By providing a variety of recreational games, it attracts guests of all ages to entertain and use their brains, so as to relieve the pressure of life and work. During the two-year epidemic, Vienna closed the city four times successively. Cafes were closed and residents were not allowed to go out, but shop rent still had to be paid. This also makes this coffee shop which is worth learning from the business model of future generations to stop in 2021. Photo source: online professional coffee knowledge exchange more coffee bean information please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style) more boutique coffee beans please add private Wechat Qianjie coffee, WeChat: kaixinguoguo0925

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