Aufzug Café

Review

Upwards, please

People collect all sorts of things. Really anything that is possible: Islands, belly button lint, empty packaging or cats. Christian Tauss collects old elevators. Although he would like to emphasize that he probably doesn't tick like other elevator collectors, "I don't care about the different drive tire philosophies, for example, I'm interested in the stories behind the elevators, the people, not the technology." This is actually exactly where he comes from, because as an electrician he had access to the old houses with their old elevators, which he had to repair, and learned their stories from old residents. For example, about the man who sympathized with the resistance and came back from the Second World War with a leg injury, which immediately prompted his Nazi landlady not to have the broken elevator repaired. When Tauss then moved into a house on the Wiedner Gürtel diagonally opposite the main train station, he had the idea of turning an empty slot machine shop into an "old elevator" café. He took renovation courses at the adult education center, began collecting, restoring and building. He turned old staircase banisters into flower troughs, iron elevator grating into table legs and the Gambler-Tschocherl on the Gürtel into a charming little café, which exerts a quite astonishing attraction: People practically queue up to take a seat in the wooden cabin of the d'Ester elevator factory, Schlachthausgasse 15, or in the magnificently decorated berth of the Hanns Füglister elevator factory, Embelgasse 17-19, dating from 1906. Or in the two cabins from the paternoster of the former CA headquarters at Schottentor from 1911, which have been converted into seating niches. But it's no wonder, because unlike most themed restaurants, it's not kitsch that rules here, but extremely lovingly designed detail. Apart from the fact that there is very good coffee from the coffee factory, which Christian Tauss turns into espresso in a La Marzocco, you can also drink interesting teas here and try the various cakes that Tauss bakes himself every day. The French rolls and croissants come from the bakery around the corner. No, the liftboy uniform in which he faces the guests is not historical, it comes from a costume rental shop. He was inspired by Wes Anderson's film "Grand Budapest Hotel". Because Christian Tauss is a big Wes Anderson fan. And that doesn't surprise us at all. The very special sitting-in-a-coffee-house experience - in the Aufzug Café, you sit in historic elevator and paternoster cabins.

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