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Closed closet

Fenster Cafe | 8 March 2023 | 13:19

The closet or Schrank (Schrank – Schrnk) is the second establishment I created in Vienna. It was the second year of Kaffee von Sascha. At that time it seemed to me that my size was much bigger than the size of my coffee shop and I had to grow.

At the same time, my law school classmate (from Kyiv) was thinking of moving to Vienna and in numerous discussions he “believed” in my then idea – “coffee plus pastries”, which required about 70,000 euros and 50-100 m2 of space. He even planned to open 5-10 such places.

Already at that time, the idea that there should be coffee and only coffee was beginning to take shape and its variation with pastries was a logical “hybrid” development.

Everything is simple. In Vienna, as in the whole of Austria, there are very developed networks of local small “bakeries”. In fact, they do not bake anything, but only heat deep-frozen pastries. Nevertheless, in the morning there are queues there. And such an institution, if you add high-quality delicious coffee, could become incredibly successful precisely because those bakeries have no idea about coffee.

So there you go. Anyway, we started looking for premises and preparing. In the process of constant discussions, the format of the institution changed and breakfast, beer and all sorts of other things were added. Some people were afraid of the risks that there would be no food and people would not come to the institution, and money would not be earned, blah blah blah. These fears are completely unnecessary, because, in the end, the Shafa closed in a couple of years forever. And the rich “food” menu did not save it at all.

As much as I wanted to make that second step to bigger projects, I was blind and did not see that I was actually moving away from it. A bistro, or a so-called restaurant, is not my thing at all.

But nevertheless. While working on the Closet, we sold Kaffee von Sascha. Apart from the fact that I missed my coffee shop, I was happy that I could concentrate on a new project. I could have. But fortunately it didn’t happen. There was some drama.

During a heated discussion about the future of the Wardrobe, which at that time had been working for several weeks, and I along with it, due to circumstances of an insurmountable nature (not my own, but the circumstances), I walked out the front door and never returned. Fortunately. Because a completely different door was waiting for me. More precisely – the Window 🙂

This period of the Closet lasted about a year. For six months, its active phase took place, during which the premises were found, all the necessary documentation was drawn up, redecoration works were carried out, equipment, staff search and so on. Quite quickly, by the standards of Vienna.

By the time I walked through the doors of the Closet, I had worked there as a barista for several weeks and the number of visitors in the “almost no food” format was constantly growing. I subconsciously cut back on everything related to food every time, until the moment I fired the cook. Actually, formally, that was the beginning of that discussion.

Nevertheless, the Cupboard had to happen. Without it, nothing would have happened. The Wardrobe was the last step of my story “to Fenster”. The last, but necessary. Therefore, this issue concludes the section “Prelude” and in the next one we will move on to what you are reading all this for.

The fact is that while searching for the premises for the Wardrobe, we looked through many options, among which there was one interesting location. It was a souvenir shop of one of my friends. It was a very atmospheric place, but the Wardrobe would not go there even if it really wanted to. There are several reasons, but it is not important now.

I’m getting coffee, and what happened next will happen next 🙂

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