Coffee house and disco

From lemonade kiosk to nightclub

It all begins with the so-called Paradeisgartl, a public area of greenery by the Bastei of the old Viennese city wall. There is already a much-loved coffee house here in 1784. In 1809 Napoleon has the Bastei blown up, after the French leave it is rebuilt, with a new Paradeisgartl on top.

Corti, a Milanese coffee house owner, opens a coffee house here in 1820. What is special about it is that it is the first Viennese coffee house with tables in an outdoor garden, and it soon becomes popular. The Corti’sche coffee house is accessible via a ramp in the Volksgarten. When the Bastei is finally torn down in 1872, Vienna’s Burgtheater is built here and the coffee house moves to the Volksgarten.

The semicircular coffee house is expanded in 1898 and rebuilt after WW2. A restaurant, a milk bar, a garden for guests and a terrace are added. At the end of the 1950s the coffee house gets another makeover and from now on has a glass-roofed conservatory at its disposal.

Today Signor Corti’s former coffee house is a popular nightclub which goes by the same name as the park around it, Volksgarten.