REFILING: FEATURE: Bollywood competition for Vienna coffee houses+

VIENNA, Dec. 26_(Kyodo) _ In Vienna, life revolves around the slow pace of the coffeehouse — spending hours on end in a cafe, reading the papers or chatting is a favorite pastime for Viennese of all generations.

Vienna’s traditional coffeehouses are deeply ingrained in the city’s culture. To understand the Viennese, one has to meet them in their natural environment – the smoky coffeehouse with its high stucco ceilings, old-fashioned plush seats, hundreds of newspapers and grumpy waiters.

Business meetings, press conferences, lectures, all of them take place in the cafe, as do dates between lovers, family reunions or student cram sessions.

More than 2800 coffee-related businesses can be found in the city, among them between 50 and 80 historical cafes and about 250 coffee and cake shops, said Maximillian Platzer, head of Vienna’s cafe owners’ association.

The Viennese guard the coffee and coffeehouses jealously against change and unwelcome intrusions.

“The Viennese coffeehouse is something very special,” Platzer said, speaking from his own traditional cafe, filled with clattering waiters and elderly Viennese ladies lunching with their friends.

“It is a phenomenon of an urban area like Vienna, while a chain is a different phenomenon. They don’t have the individuality of a coffeehouse,” he said.

Even U.S. coffee giant Starbucks, which opened its first outlet in Vienna in 2001, was not greeted with particularly open arms.

“I never go to Starbucks. I do not drink coffee out of a paper cup. That’s not the way to drink coffee,” Werner, a 24-year old Viennese, said.

Originally, the U.S. chain planned to open 60 stores until 2006, but expansion is progressing a lot slower than anticipated. Four years after bringing coffee, American style, to Austria, Starbucks is far from its original goal with only 10 outlets open.

Viennese coffee drinkers did stay faithful to their coffeehouses — fears of traditional cafes being replaced by paper-cup wielding Starbucks drinkers proved to have been unfounded.

“When Starbucks opened, everyone asked if I was afraid, but why should I be? If I were afraid of competition I shouldn’t open my doors every morning,” Platzer said.

“When Starbucks came, I thought I’ll wait and see. Maybe this vanilla-flavored coffee was something I had missed out on for the past 50 years. Well, it turned out not to be. Each to his own taste,” he added.

In late November, a new competitor, both for Starbucks and the established coffeehouses, entered the field: “Coffee Day,” an Indian cafe chain opened its first European outlet in the Austrian capital.

Coffee Day is one of India’s largest coffee companies, with 250 outlets on the subcontinent.

The conglomerate has been producing and exporting coffee for 130 years. During the last decade Coffee Day opened its first kiosks and coffee shops and since then has expanded considerably, now even venturing across the oceans to Europe.

The question puzzling Viennese coffee drinkers is why did Coffee Day decide to open its first overseas store in Vienna of all places?

Sudipta Sen Gupta from Coffee Day’s Indian headquarters is optimistic that the newcomer will stand its ground.

He said the company had to choose between expanding to a “safe” market and pitting itself against European cafes.

“We chose…to set up our first overseas cafe in the mecca of coffee culture, Vienna. It is a tall order to match up to or better the European cafe, but we believe it is the only way to do business,” Gupta said.

“We know we may not be the best in every aspect of the business, but we want to be and hence we chose a difficult market – to learn, to test out our own skills and confidence.”

Coffee Day’s first Vienna outlet is situated in a central location near the famous Opera House, the Albertina art museum, a major shopping street and not far from its better known competitor, Starbucks.

The spacious and modernly furnished coffee shop serves classic types of coffee like espresso and caffe latte, but, unlike Starbucks, also Viennese specialities such as the “Melange,” a strong coffee served with hot foamed milk.

Different from traditional Viennese cafes, Coffee Day also tries to target a younger crowd by offering a range of salads and cocktails.

During a lunchtime visit the cafe was moderately busy for a weekday, with most of the clientele being tourists blown in by the cold of a wintery December day.

Depending on the performance of the Vienna outlet in the months to come, Coffee Day may consider further expansion to the rest of Austria, Germany or Switzerland and later maybe even the rest of Europe, a company spokesman said.

The question is if Starbucks’ oriental competitors will fare better against the overwhelming local competition with its deeply ingrained culture.

Vienna’s coffeehouses have accepted that due to the inevitable progress of globalization international companies will increasingly try to enter the Austrian market, but they are hopeful that their customers will keep appreciating the individual atmosphere that only they can offer.

The Vienna coffee makers wish Coffee Day much success in Vienna and hope that they will be an asset to the coffeehouse culture of the city.