Daniel and Riccardo, two coffee nerds who had worked in cafés all over the world, opened their first café in Vienna in 2021, then another, then a third. The idea is in the name: a society of people who care about coffee, gathered around neighbourhood cafés with friendly service. The team sources and roasts coffee from around the world and stocks beans from roasters abroad that are hard to find elsewhere in Vienna, beside house roasts such as Stumpergasse Mix #2, an espresso blend of India, Brazil and Ethiopia.

That first café, in Mariahilf, is a shoebox of a room that earned a following among Vienna’s coffee lovers for its global range of beans. Seating is limited, so laptop time is kept to 30 minutes, and there is a garden at the front. The Leopoldstadt café, on a corner with a fireplace for winter and a garden for summer, serves breakfast all day, from eggs Benedict to pancakes, with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes and cakes made by hand by the house pastry chef.

The Good Coffee Society Lab in Alsergrund is a large room in an old Viennese Altbau with a big shared table and a grab-and-go window. Its menu changes weekly, it experiments with brewing techniques and it hosts roaster takeovers. All three cafés have a cake and pastry cabinet, none takes reservations, and every order comes with the question of plant-based or cow’s milk.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: The Good Coffee Society