Ravintola Kuappi - Veikonkatu 1 - Iisalmi - 2

Restaurant Kuappi - inside - Veikonkatu 1 - Iisalmi

Kuappi () is a

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

Iisalmi Iisalmi (; sv, Idensalmi) is a town and municipality in the region of Northern Savonia in Finland. It is located north of Kuopio and south of Kajaani. The municipality has a population of (), which makes it the second largest of the five towns ...

, Finland. According to ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'', it is the smallest restaurant in the world. The building has a footprint of , of which is indoors. The building housing the restaurant was constructed in 1907 as a cabin for Finnish State Railways (now

VR Group VR-Group Plc ( fi, VR-Yhtymä Oyj, sv, VR-Group Abp), commonly known as VR, is a government-owned railway company in Finland. VR's most important function is the operation of Finland's passenger rail services with 250 long-distance and 800 co ...

) track inspectors to rest in, and it was later moved from its trackside location to its current place. It was named Korkki for a long time. Inside the building is a

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

, a television, one table for two people and a toilet. The interior of the restaurant is fully licensed to serve alcohol and can seat two people in addition to a waiter. There is also a small terrace outdoors. In late May 2020, there was an announcement that because of the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

restrictions only one customer could enter the restaurant at a time in early summer 2020. The terrace could still seat two customers as terraces were free of customer limit restrictions. The name of the restaurant, ''Kuappi'', means "

cupboard A cupboard is a piece of furniture for enclosing dishware or grocery items that are stored in a home. The term gradually evolved from its original meaning: an open-shelved side table for displaying dishware, more specifically plates, cups and sa ...

" in English. The actual word in

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

is ''kaappi'', but the double vowel "aa" tends to morph into "ua" in

Savonian dialects The Savonian dialects (also called Savo Finnish)( fi, Savolaismurteet) are forms of the Finnish language spoken in Savonia and other parts of Eastern Finland. Finnish dialects are grouped broadly into Eastern and Western varieties; Savonian diale ...

, hence ''kaappi'' becomes ''kuappi''.

Services

Kuappi is fully licensed to serve alcoholic beverages to customers. The restaurant serves a variety of food, including salads, hamburgers, fish, chicken, meat and mushrooms. Famous dishes include fried vendace, hunter's steak sandwich, and pork

schnitzel A schnitzel is a thin slice of meat. The meat is usually thinned by pounding with a meat tenderizer. Most commonly, the meat is breaded before frying. Breaded schnitzel is popular in many countries and is made using veal, pork, chicken, mutton, ...

, and traditional Savonian blueberry "kukko" (mustikkakukko''Mustikkakukko, Blueberry Rye Pie'' https://mydearkitcheninhelsinki.com/2014/09/29/mustikkakukko-blueberry-rye-pie-100th-blog-post/) or chocolate cake for dessert. Because of the small size of the restaurant, it does not have a kitchen. All dishes served at Kuappi are actually prepared in the kitchen of the neighbouring restaurant Olutmestari.

Kuappirock

In summer 2018, Kuappi organised Kuappirock, the smallest rock music festival in the world. A total of four tickets for the festival were sold, and the festival featured one band: a one-man punk rock band called Impotent Givärs. Tickets for the festival were sold at an auction on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, with bids going as high as 125 euros for two tickets.

References

External links

Pictures of the restaurant
at Vaunut.org
Official site

Kuappi. Iisalmi, Finland. The smallest restaurant in the world

Atlas Obscura ''Atlas Obscura'' is an American-based online magazine and travel company. It was founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker/author Dylan Thuras. It catalogs unusual and obscure travel destinations via user-generated content ...

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