One of the least-changed of all the great Viennese cafés — marble, Thonet chairs and three billiard tables since 1880, and the cradle of the group that founded the Secession.
At a glance
Café Sperl sits on the corner of Gumpendorfer Straße in Vienna’s sixth district, Mariahilf. Opened in 1880, it is celebrated as one of the best-preserved coffeehouses in the city — its interior almost untouched, down to the carambole billiard tables that once made it a social hub.
History
The café was founded in 1880 as Café Ronacher by Jacob Ronacher, in a building whose interior was designed by the architects Wilhelm Jelinek and Anton Groß. Within a year Ronacher sold it to the Sperl family, who renamed it and gave it its lasting identity.
In the 1890s the Sperl became the regular meeting place of the Siebenerclub — the “Club of Seven” — a circle of young artists and architects that included Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and Josef Maria Olbrich. From those gatherings came the Vienna Secession, founded in 1897. The café thus sits at the very start of Viennese modernism, even as its own rooms stayed resolutely nineteenth-century.
What you see
The interior is the point: parquet floors, marble-topped tables, bentwood Thonet chairs, crystal chandeliers and high ceilings, kept almost exactly as they were.
Three carambole billiard tables — a rarity in cafés today — still stand in the back rooms, a survival of the coffeehouse as a place to spend the whole afternoon.
Cultural significance
The Sperl is where Viennese modernism was hatched in a thoroughly traditional room. That the same tables that hosted the future Secessionists survive unchanged makes it one of the truest windows onto the golden age of the Kaffeehaus.
Key facts
- Founded: 1880, as Café Ronacher by Jacob Ronacher; soon renamed by the Sperl family
- Design: interior by Wilhelm Jelinek and Anton Groß
- Secession: 1890s home of the Siebenerclub (Hoffmann, Moser, Olbrich)
- Interior: famously unchanged — Thonet chairs, marble, three billiard tables
- Location: Gumpendorfer Straße 11, Mariahilf, Vienna
Practical information & getting there
The café is on Gumpendorfer Straße, near the Naschmarkt. Nearest U-Bahn: Museumsquartier (line U2) or Kettenbrückengasse (U4). Open daily to all.
Sources & resources
- Café Sperl — History: cafesperl.at/en-history.html
- Muvamo — Café Sperl, Vienna
- Visiting Vienna — Café Sperl
- Bubbly Living — Café Sperl, Vienna
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