The legendary Hauer confectionery reopens in August

It is always nice to visit a restaurant or a café that was once one of the most significant spots in Budapest. After years of being closed, the Hauer confectionery reopens in August, thus breathing new life into the neighbourhood, reports index.hu.

One of Index.hu’s reporters actually paid the confectionery – still under renovation – a visit. The following is a recollection of his experiences.

You would expect a building that was abandoned for years to be in a run-down state, but this is not the case here: only a minimum amount of renovating was needed. Authorities only requested the installation of new toilets, nothing else had to be replaced. Still, the owners repainted everything, you will find the old bright white furniture to resemble antique pieces, the chairs were upholstered and the floor had to be re-polished.

Attractive spaciousness: the story behind the interior design

Hauer is different from the usual downtown confectioneries, as it has three stories, not just a simple guest area, with huge windows with a view of the street, and a counter with a confectionery shop behind it. It is altogether 1300 square meters big today, but, as most of the successful and still operating businesses in Budapest with a long history, it started off as a small family venture. Nándor Kasselik opened a small confectionery in the same spot in 1890, which was not fancy, considering that this area was on the outskirts of the town back in the day. Years later, after the death of Kasselik, his widow married Rezső Hauer, who revived the place.

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Today, one would expand by relocating, but back then they had to resort to simpler solutions, so Hauer kept adding new and new joints: first a snack room, then a chocolate- and bonbon factory and so on, so forth. Today the confectionery occupies the whole ground level of the apartment house on Rákóczi street, along with the roofed inner yard. The yard used to be an event room for years, equipped with a submergible stage. At one side, you will find the confectionery shops, the preparation rooms in the flats that open into each other, on the other, there are decorated saloons with a bar at the end of it. There is even a spacious backstage in the back.

It is quite an exciting adventure to explore it; even if you don’t have a sweet tooth, you should still visit it, it spectacularly embodies everything related to the twentieth century. Some pieces of furniture resemble the Golden Era, though they are not originals, the portal was built in the 1930’s, there are relics from the period following the nationalising, and there are also the areas renovated recently.