Phil Coffee

Phil has operated as a cafe, bookshop, and bar at Gumpendorfer Strasse 10-12 in Vienna's 6th district since 2004. The shop describes its own shelves as holding 'more than 4,000 books,' a collection it calls sometimes a little unusual and quirky rather than a curated bestseller list, spread through what the cafe calls a cozy Vienna living room. Breakfast is sourced from regional suppliers with an emphasis on organic quality, and a weekday laptop table accommodates working customers, though the cafe asks that laptops stay closed on weekends to preserve the room's atmosphere for everyone else. Past nightfall, the cafe-bookshop turns into a bar, serving longdrinks and espresso martinis under, as the venue puts it, disco-ball light and soft beats -- a genuine format shift rather than just a later closing time. A garden (Schanigarten) opens seasonally from April through October for outdoor coffee, breakfast, and reading. The venue has picked up repeat local press coverage, appearing in Falter's local guide, Falstaff's cafe guide, and Vienna's own tourism site. Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard is quoted on the site describing a lifelong habit of retreating to coffeehouses the way others retreat to a park or forest -- a line the cafe uses to frame its own role as a refuge, in the words of a canonical Viennese literary voice rather than its own marketing copy.