
The Café Savoy (formerly ''Café Wienzeile'') is a
Viennese coffee house and gay bar on the left bank of the
Wien river (''Linke Wienzeile'') in
Mariahilf district. It was opened in 1896.
The building itself was designed and built by the architect
Franz von Neumann in 1896 and 1897, commissioned by textile manufacturer
Julius Léon von Wernburg, who bought the property in 1889. The café moved into the majority of the floor at street level. In the beginning, it carried the name ''Café Wienzeile'', based on its location, and was owned by the Kuszak family, who also operated coffee houses in
Prague and
Budapest. The architectural style is palatial and the café features two mirrors advertised to be Europe′s largest mirrors formed from one piece after the ones in
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
, as well as a chandelier by
Theophil von Hansen.
The coffee house was renamed to Café Savoy in 1983 and downsized to just over a third of the ground level
and was renovated in 2008 and 2009.
References
Savoy
Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps.
Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south.
Savo ...
LGBT culture in Vienna
Mariahilf
{{Vienna-stub