Konstanz Working Cafés #13: Auszeit

Where better to find a nice café than in Paradies?

Advantages:

• Guest wifi. Hallelujah!
• Good range of stuff, including various coffees, vegan options, etc. etc.
• Nice food, ideal if you want to stay there in the middle of the day. Pictured: a quiche with side salad.

Disadvantages:

• Out of the way. Not to the same level as Heimathafen, but it’s not central: it’s about a 15-minute walk down dull but affluent residential streets from the city centre. The 9A bus goes past, but, still, unless you have the good fortune to live in Paradies, it’s not convenient.
• Busy. I was there at 11:30 on a working Wednesday, hardly peak time, but the place was packed. I ended up sitting outside in distinctly autumnal weather.
• Very expensive. Coffee + quiche worked out to over €14. Even city-centre places tend to be cheaper than this. Well, who needs to worry about money in Paradies, I suppose.

Ambience and coffee fall into the “neither advantage nor disadvantage” category.

Price of a regular black coffee: €4.00, the most I’ve seen. In fairness this is reasonably chonky (though not Pano chonky) and a smaller option is available for €3.30, but that’s still a lot of money.

Overall rating: ☕️☕️☕️ (3/5, actually more like 2.5).

Konstanz Working Cafés #12: Café Arôme

A hidden gem this week.

Advantages:

• Concealed location. Although it’s central, you have to go through an unprepossessing parfumerie, down into a dungeon, and out the other side in order to find it. This makes it unlikely that it’ll ever be too crowded.
• Open on Mondays. Many cafés aren’t.
• Great cake. The Google reviews for this place rave about the cake, and boy, they weren’t wrong.
• Lovely garden. The café opens out onto a peaceful, pleasant courtyard garden where you can sit. The inside part of the café is also nice, with bookshelves and art.

Said lovely garden.

Disadvantages:

• No wifi. Par for the course but, still, sigh.
• No savoury food. (But you could just have more cake.)
• Okay coffee. It’s not bad, but there are better ones around.

Price of a regular black coffee (here “Café Schümli”): €3.20

Overall rating: ☕️☕️☕️ (3/5).