Budapest Cafe Culture - Expatriate Experience

The Expatriate Experience
Hungarian Café Culture
by Jennifer Doyle

By 1880, Budapest alone had over 600 cafes, more cafes than any other European
country with the exception of Paris. Hungarian café culture has been alive and thriving to
this day. Restaurants are places where you must wear a suit and tie, live up to class
expectations or God-forbid, run in for a Big Mac (shudder). The café is always welcoming
however and accepting of a wide and often bizarre group of people. They even welcome
those weird, hermit like people who skulk in corners day after day with their laptops as
their only companion until you wonder if they ever sleep and the state of their mental
health (people like me in other words).

Even if the waiter is frustrated with your poor Hungarian and refuses to speak English
properly (he dare he speak his own national language in his own country!), even his sad
mistreatment of you and that grunt in your general direction is simply Hungarian for “Hi! My
name’s Chip. Can I take your order?” Moreover, let’s face it, even Hungarians at their
snottiest are nicer than the French.

When researching this article, for the benefit of my readers and in relentless pursuit of
truth, I have logged more hours in Hungarian Cafes, than Zsa Zsa Gabor has episodes of
Green Acres. This is some things I have come to understand:

Repetition is the Key - Sure go shopping for a café, but when you find one you like,
make it your own. No matter how apparently rude the wait staff, I have discovered
that if you go somewhere enough, they get used to you. In two of the cafés, I went
to, my level only went from “hated” to “tolerated”, but in others, the staff eventually
thawed considerably. In the one I finally chose, I know all their names and they
help me with my Hungarian, while I drink my coffee. So perseverance is the key.

The café is your second home - or in some cases, your first. All this effort of
repetition on behalf of a café may seem pointless to those of us who are from non-
café cultures (no Starbuck’s in Barnes and Noble does not count), but let me tell
you, here in Hungary life revolves around the café. Basically, for the price of a cup
of coffee, I have been able to command use of a table for hours, with no complaint
from the staff. I have seen people having meetings in the café, sitting at a table
seeing client after client at the table where everyone knows they can be found.
Now that I am on my second year here, I too have started to arrange meetings at a
café. I mean hey, it’s more comfortable than an office and less messy than my
apartment.

Budapest, Hungary
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Hungarian cafes are the cradle of civilization. It all begins here folks. You will never see a
more diverse array of people; or be able to view up close the micro universe of
socialization anywhere like you can in a Hungarian café. I mean, you could try to raise fruit
flies in a jar and study their mating habits, but then they get loose and breed in your dirty
laundry and… well never mind, I have gotten off track.

My point it this, everyone is welcome in a Hungarian café. No really, it’s true. The strange
doctors who come in once a month and ramble about themselves? Yes. The accountant
who meets all his clients there while taking endless shots of espresso during tax
season? Yes.

That couple who are always making out? (I have always wondered if these people have
homes, but that is another article.) Yes. Work-aholic computer geeks who get the shakes
when they get too far from their laptops…that smelly guy on tram 56? (you know who you
are.) Yes and yes.

So, if you haven’t gotten to know a Hungarian café, I suggest you get out there and enjoy
the experience as soon as possible. You never know why a café will choose you or if you
will choose it. I picked mine because it has a non-smoking section. I mean, its not like
the smoke from across the bar doesn’t float over too us, but the non-smoking “section”
has no ash trays on the tables…so I have to give them points for effort.