Leopold Hawelka and his wife, Josefine, have run their cafe in central Vienna since 1939, serving the likes of Henry Miller and Grace Kelly at a dozen marble-topped tables, beneath walls yellowed by cigarette smoke.
Now they have competition.
Starbucks Corp will begin selling Frappuccinos and double tall skinny lattes a few blocks away, across the street from the state opera house, in December. It plans to open as many as 60 coffee houses in Austria over the next five years. Regulars at Cafe Hawelka don't think the owner of more than 4,300 no-smoking cafes worldwide will beat Vienna's coffee houses at a business they have perfected over more than 200 years.
"I've been coming here for 25 years because I can sit for hours in peace, read, and smoke cigarettes," said Eleonore Lappin, a 49-year-old historian. "American coffee and the pace of life associated with those cafes are different."
Seattle-based Starbucks opened its first continental European outlet last March in neighboring Switzerland, and it is hoping to repeat the success in Austria, said Peter Maslen, president of Starbucks Coffee International. Both efforts are joint ventures with Bon Appetit Group AG.
"The Austrians are known to be open to new ideas," said Mark McKeon, president of Starbucks Europe, Middle East and Africa. "There are youngsters who listen to pop music and those who listen to classical music. It will be the same way with cafes here, modernist and traditionalist sitting side by side." Guenter Hawelka, the 60-year-old son of Leopold who works at the cafe, doesn't agree.
"The Viennese are very traditional. They'll go and look at something like Starbucks and check it out, but they'll come back to their regular cafe," he said, adjusting his dark waistcoat.
While Hawelka doubts US-style cafe culture will catch on in the Austrian capital, some Americans think the city could use some coffee-to-go.
"When we lived in Texas, we used to get up early, go jogging and reward ourselves afterward with a latte at Starbucks," Kathryn Hall, the US ambassador to Austria, said at the company's press conference.
"I think Starbucks will make Vienna's cafe landscape even richer."
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