Konstanz Working Cafés #6: Heinrich

The latest instalment in the series is brought to you today not as a “working café” as much as it is a “café to slump exhaustedly in while drinking a smoothie after a long day at work”. But I’ve been to Heinrich many times before to work, and hopefully the reasons for this will become clear below.

Advantages:

• Good coffee and great food: see pics. Here you see a smoothie with a banana & courgette tart (top pic) and a piece of cheesecake with a cappuccino (bottom pic), and there is much more.

• Wifi that works and is free: this shouldn’t need to be stated! But unfortunately is still missing from way too many nice cafés here.
• Great location: it’s central, near the bus stops, the station and the cathedral, and is good for people-watching, as well as just being surrounded by nice-looking buildings.
• Decent size: it’s rarely completely full, even at peak times, and yet is small enough not to feel too industrial.
• Reasonably priced: for a place with as many pretensions as this one clearly has, it’s unusual to see prices this low.

Disadvantages:

• Weird music choices: they’re unconventional, I’ll give them that, but neither thrash-metal nor grime are really what I’m hoping for from a working café – just too distracting. In fairness, though, it’s usually inane pop music playing.
• Danger of sugar coma: beware of the brownies and cheesecake in particular.

Price of a regular black coffee: €2.50 (small)

Overall rating: ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️ (5/5). Since I’m from the British academic system and hate giving full marks to anyone or anything, I should point out that this is rounded up from a 4.7 or something. Still, it’s my current favourite place to go to work in the city centre.

Konstanz Working Cafés #5: Coffee Fritz

Next up in our series is Coffee Fritz, a little place near the Swiss border that has only been here for a few years.

Advantages:

• Excellent coffee: you can always get a very nice coffee here. It was set up on the model of an Australian coffee shop, complete with flat white, long black, etc. If you just ask for a coffee, you will be asked to specify further - which in Konstanz is the mark of a good coffee place. They have a very small range of food options, mostly pastries and muesli, but it’s all high quality. Depicted: cappuccino.

• Lovely staff: the small team that run it are super friendly, and also speak excellent English, in case language is a deal-breaker for you.
• Nice ambience: full of coffee-related paraphernalia, see picture. Range of seating.

• Rarely completely full, despite not being very big. For the summer months it has outdoor seating with good people-watching spots. Its location is marked by a sign with amusing things written on it (see picture).

• Good location: it’s next to Schnetztor, on the number 9 bus line to the university, and 5-10 minutes’ walk from the station and city centre, as well as 5 minutes’ walk from the Swiss border.

Disadvantages:

• No wifi, and mobile internet doesn’t work particularly well here either. Bring the files you need.
• Not open every day. It’s always closed on Sundays and (more importantly for working purposes) Mondays.
• Slightly on the expensive side, though it doesn’t really matter if you just nurse one or two coffees over a couple of hours.

Price of a regular black coffee (here americano/long black): €3.50

Overall rating: ☕️☕️☕️☕️ (4/5). Rounded up from 3.5ish, since the lack of internet is a big deal for working.

Konstanz Working Cafés #4: Café Bloggers

Our fourth entry is the aptly-named Café Bloggers. Now, I must confess to being negatively biased from the outset with this one, since it’s replaced Café Zeitlos, which was my favourite breakfast spot in all of Konstanz. Still, I found myself quite pleasantly surprised.

Advantages:

• Great food: this isn’t the ideal attribute of a working café, but true nonetheless. The menu is quite short, but full of interesting and tasty-looking things, with silly names like “Naan-Masté” (for a naan with hummus and feta). I had the “Pop Eye”, a sort of toasted brioche sandwich with truffle oil, depicted below. The coffee is fine too.

• Wifi: yes, it just works, and the password is on the menu. You’d think this would be the default for Konstanz cafés. You’d think wrong.
• Attentive service.

Disadvantages:

• It’s a bit out of the way, hidden behind the Stephanskirche. But maybe I’m being too harsh here.
• It’s small and noisy. Better to go there with a friend for breakfast or lunch than for working.
• Relatedly, it gets full/booked up quickly. Tables can be reserved. While I was there, many people were turned away. I’d feel bad about sitting here with my laptop and nursing a coffee for long.

Price of a regular black coffee: €3.00. (I’ll add this to all future café posts.)

Overall rating: ☕️☕️ (2/5). I feel a bit mean for giving this rating, so I should explain: as somewhere to go for a meal or a drink with a friend, I’d give it a ☕️☕️☕️☕️ (4/5), but it’s not really that well suited for working (or, ironically, blogging).