Coffee News
Downtown hotel opens Dallas' first Viennese-style coffee shop
UPDATE: According to a release, the shop will open on April 18. It's named after Otto Schubert, the charismatic general manager of The Adolphus from 1928 to 1946.
A walk-up window will serve Liège waffles and coffee. Breakfast will include house-made bagels, pain au chocolat, almond croissants, breakfast sandwiches, quiche Lorraine, steel-cut oats, and chia seed and acaí puddings. Lunch will include baguette sandwiches, grain and green salads, plus Viennese treats and sweets such as sachertorte, Linzter torte, and apple strudel — available until they run out.
-------------------
A coffee shop is opening in downtown Dallas with an approach that's almost entirely new. Called Otto's, it will open at the Adolphus Hotel, which describes it as a "warm European style coffee shop realized in the Bauhaus style."
The shop will be a "Viennese-style" coffee shop featuring beans from Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters used to make espresso and coffee drinks. They'll also do pastries and Austrian treats made in-house. Can you say strudel?
The Viennese coffee house is about more than coffee, and is instead an institution that plays a role in shaping the city's culture.
Unlike American coffee concepts where the main directive is to get your coffee beverage and GTFO, the Viennese coffee house serves as a place to linger, a kind of living room for the city.
The Culture Trip, a website with an awesome name, cites the elegant ambience and "captivating" culture of the Viennese coffee house.
"By purchasing a single cup of coffee in one of the city’s grand old cafes, customers can spend entire days amongst a charming ambience and variety of patrons, making the Vienna coffee house an integral part of the city’s social experience," it says.
There's often live music, readings, and other social events that are big with the literary types.
Viennese coffee houses also have a definitive style. They come with certain motifs such as marble tabletops and newspaper tables.
Their approach to serving coffee places it on a silver tray, with a spoon, sugar, and glass of water, possibly with a chocolate; this is also how it's served at Weekend Coffee, the shop at the Joule Dallas hotel.
Food-wise, there are small foodstuffs like sausage rolls, cakes, strudels, and tarts.
According to representative at the Adolphus, the opening is targeted for the end of the month. It'll occupy a space in what was formerly part of the lobby, to the right of the hotel's entrance.
The Adolphus underwent a renovation in 2017 which included a makeover of its iconic restaurant the French Room and the addition of a new bar, as well as the refresher of its 3-meal-a-day eatery, now called City Bistro.
Otto's joins a tiny wave of continental coffee shops that stretch outside the usual boundaries.
- There's the recent opening of LDU Coffee on Fitzhugh Avenue, which takes an Australian approach
- and the coming-soon debut of the very similar-sounding Cafe Intermezzo, a European-style coffee concept opening at the Shops at Legacy in Plano, which aspires to recreate the experience of an old-school European coffeehouse.
The news about all three of these coffee concepts was broken on CultureMap. Someone had to say it.
Daydream brings people together over their love of coffee and literature. Photo courtesy of Daydream. 
The shop features a pink La Marzocco espresso machine.Photo courtesy of Daydream