Café Jen

Café Jen opened in Vršovice in 2013 as an enthusiasts’ project to bring coffee from Has Bean, the UK roaster now called Ozone, to the Czech Republic, along with breakfast and, above all, a neighbourhood café for the people around it. By its own account, Jen was there when Prague’s coffee culture began, and over those thirteen years Vršovice has turned from a forgotten corner of the city into a fashionable district.

Its house coffee, Superkafíčko, is roasted by Father’s, and every month a guest roaster from somewhere in Europe takes a place on the grinder. Espresso comes from a La Marzocco Linea PB paired with a Mahlkönig E80, and there are usually two coffees on batch brew. Cakes and sandwiches are made at Jen’s own bakery around the corner: carrot cake, banana bread, yeast cakes and more, also baked to order, with catering under the name Svačina. Breakfast is the café’s favourite meal, with scrambled eggs, house granola with quark, a loupák with cream or a bagel with bacon and a fried egg, and a brunch at weekends. Jen takes no reservations.

The shop corner sells filters and other coffee accessories, bags of coffee for home, tea from Tea Mountain and the café’s granola and biscuits. Since 2020 Jen has released a new coffee sweatshirt every autumn. In 2022 it bought a First Republic villa on the border of Vinohrady and Vršovice and opened a second café there, Vila 63, with a garden, brunch and wine, pop-ups and dinners, and a welcome for dogs, children and bikes.

Photograph: Café Jen