This is a whole story on its own — but let’s talk about it in the context of building the best coffee shop in the world. When I was working on Kaffee von Sascha, I knew from day one: this was my “training” café.

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One of the most important questions for any business is this: What’s your concept?
Let me explain briefly what I mean by that. Your concept is the answer to three key questions: what you’re selling, how you’re going to sell it, and who you’re selling it to.
If you don’t have a clear concept, you can’t define your direction or your goals.
As someone my age, with my interests, I need to know that.
Which means I have a concept. And Fenster does too.

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One of the most common questions I get is: “Where did you learn all this?” And honestly, it’s not a simple answer. The first real source of knowledge for me—like I’ve said before—was a book by David C. Schomer, Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques.

That was it. After that—I was on my own.

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When I moved to Vienna, I had no plans to open a cafe. I didn’t plan anything at all, to be honest. At first, I was learning the language. Then came the time when I had to decide what to do next. To practice the whole process—how to organize and register a business—I decided to pick something and go through the steps in real life.

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That’s a question we often get from our visitors. – “Because of childhood.” That’s the short version.

I started drinking coffee pretty early. Maybe my mom could say more precisely, but I think I was around ten. Back in the dark Soviet times, we had this ancient moka pot, made in Lviv by the way, called “Elvo.”

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