Blanch's Cafe

Poster for Blanch's Café, design by Alexander Nay

Blanchs Café , also Blanchs café , Blanchs kafé or Blanch's café , was a traditional coffee house in Stockholm .

History and description

Blanchs Café was founded by the Berlin-based restaurateur Theodor Blanch . He had previously managed various hotels and restaurants in Sweden, including the Stockholm Operakällaren (opera cellar). In 1868 he rented rooms in the Ateljébyggnaden house on the corner of Hamngatan and Kungsträdgården Park , and opened his café named after him on the ground floor. The elegant interiors included carpeted floors, crystal chandeliers, and comfortable chairs. It was the first café in Sweden that always had a white table and where the waiters wore tails . Domestic and foreign newspapers on display were also part of the standard. The evening concerts in the house, to which Swedish and international orchestras played, were a particular attraction.

The Stockholm Art Association was located on the floors above the café, making it a preferred meeting place for artists and writers in particular. The popularity of Blanch's Café led to Theodor Julius Blanch being commissioned to run a Swedish restaurant on the site of the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna , where he offered visitors specialties such as smörgåsbord and punch . Blanch, who was interested in technical innovations, had electric lights installed for interior lighting in 1879. Blanchs Café was the first place in Stockholm with electric lighting.

In 1881 Theodor Julius Blanch left the operation of the café, but that continued to bear his name. The following year he opened the Blanchs theater behind the café with the entrance to Västra Trädgårdsgatan. Blanch's Café closed in 1918 and the building was later demolished. The Sverigehuset has been located in the same place since the 1960s .

literature

• Bodil Hasselgren; Blanchs Café tog kontinentens nöjen till Sverige . Article of January 30, 2017 about Blanchs Café on the website of the Centrum för Näringslivshistoria. (Swedish, accessed November 3, 2019)
• Lars Ericson Cloud: Stockholm's historia . Historiska Media, Lund 2016, ISBN 978-91-7545-385-9 .

Web links

Commons : Blanchs café  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The spelling of Blanchs Café can be found repeatedly in contemporary German-language travel guides, for example in Yngvar Nielsen: Sweden and Norway together with a guide through Copenhagen: a practical handbook for travelers . Mauke, Hamburg 1876, p. 77 and in Emil Jacob Jonas: Illustrirtes travel and sketch book for Sweden . Allgemeine Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Berlin 1870, p. 57.

Coordinates: 59 ° 19 ′ 57 ″  N , 18 ° 4 ′ 12 ″  E