Sadly, the rather lovely Jausen Station closed at the end of the 2023 season. A new Café Pavillon under a different owner started on the same site in April, 2024.
Previous review:
Once a playground for a (very) young Emperor Franz Joseph, now a coffee house and small-scale restaurant for us commoners. Landtmann’s Jausen Station is a hidden delight in the park surrounding Schönbrunn Palace…a glade of tranquility just a few steps away from the hustle and bustle of Vienna’s busiest tourist attraction.
- High-quality small meals, snacks and drinks with an imaginative menu
- Quiet location with excellent service and a classic 1920s (?) feel
- Particularly good for a late breakfast
- Check seasonal opening dates and hours, though
- See also:
A local review
(Landtmann’s Jausen Station terrace; press photo © Jan Lackner)
My wife and I went to the Jausen Station half expecting the black-clad gentlemen that sometimes haunt Vienna’s coffee houses with their unparalleled ability to be polite, charming and condescending all at the same time.
But no: the staff were friendly, youthful, very quick, and dressed in more informal “country” attire.
Landtmann’s Jausen Station is a coffee house with a difference. Think of it as one for summer days, with the optimistic aura of a young democracy enjoying its first trip to the beach.
The ambience is curiously delightful.
You’re in the middle of the grounds of the Habsburg summer palace, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. The house and seating areas are ringed by tall hedges on one side and a lengthy grassed area bounded by trees on the other.
If that sounds unspectacular it’s not meant to be. Therein lies its charm; just a few metres away, vast swathes of tourists wander the palace and its immediate environs. Yet here you enjoy the sun or shade in a secluded glade.
You can’t help but relax. We arrived on a Sunday morning in May and found a seat with relative ease, but perhaps it gets busier in the peak summer months.
The décor is simple; white chairs and light wooden tables inside, pastel foldaway chairs outside.
We couldn’t decide what it all reminded us of, but settled on the 1920s. Let’s just say historical, without being too historical. What’s nice is we saw no ugly branded glasses or parasols: hence the classic flair.
It’s not cheap, mind you (you’ll pay over €6 for a cappuccino), but not excessively expensive, either.
A wide range of food and drink matches traditional selections with imaginative alternatives. And all quite beautifully presented.
So while you can get basic beef soup or a latte, you also have beetroot falafel salad or “homemade” lime and ginger lemonade.
Now, let’s talk cakes.
(Landtmann’s Jausen Station cake and coffee; press photo © Jan Lackner)
The Jausen Station is run by the same family that manages several well-known coffee houses in Vienna, such as Café Museum near the State Opera House.
The group has its own patisserie producing the kinds of cakes Vienna is famous for. So you face the eternal dilemma…do you take a healthy vegan organic option, or do you pig out on a killer cake?
Good to know
My kids are grown up now, but everything seems very family friendly, perhaps echoing the building’s origins in the early 1800s as a pavilion for the young Habsburg boys to play and exercise in.
We found a “parking space” for prams, a microwave for warming milk, an outdoor baby changing table, and a kiddy’s play area off to one side. Oh, and a deck chair-strewn glade for “older kiddies” to forget the stress of modern life and regress into the optimism of more innocent times.
NB: The Jausen Station has closed over winter in the past, so might not be available if you’re in Vienna between late October and early March. Since it’s embedded in the Schönbrunn park it doesn’t stay open ’til late, either.
How to get to Landtmann’s Jausen Station
First follow the directions for Schönbrunn.
Landtmann’s Jausen Station is about 200m off to the right as you face the palace on the garden side, “hidden away” among the trees. You can also reach it from the eastern side of the park where the Schönbrunn subway station is. See the map below for details…
If you’re in Schönbrunn and looking for a more traditional coffee house, you can always try the Café-Restaurant in the Kavalierstrakt outbuilding that stretches away from the palace tour entrance.
Address: Schönbrunner Schlosspark (Kronprinzengarten), 1130 Vienna