Inside the strange world of Vienna’s disappearing dive bars

Klaus Pichler

Over the past few years, dive bars in Vienna, Austria have been closing down rapidly. Although these small bars still exist, reasons such as alcohol abuse, smoking bans, economical crisis, and more are causing them to shutter.

But these bars still have a few regulars to liven up the place. For years, author Clemens Marschall and photographer Klaus Pichler would photograph and interview the few stragglers left.

“The great thing was, after a year or two you think you’ve heard every story, but then you go to a new place and it’s a completely different universe with stories you can hardly believe,” Marschall told Business Insider.

Their book, “Golden Days Before They End,” explores the odd world inside these bars. Below, see photos of the small, yet very interesting, crowd. 

At these bars the drinks are cheap, there’s no food, and they are falling apart. “[Inside the bars are] small, smoky, boozy,” said Marschall.

Marschall and Pichler visited 100 bars, 70 of which they photographed and interviewed people.

Since they stopped working on the book, more than 25 of the bars have closed down for good. “Maybe more, because it can change every day, as we saw in the process of making the book,” said Marschall.

Marschall and Pichler focused on old, disappearing places. “If a bar looks like it’s closed, that’s always a good sign for us,” Marshcall said. “Also, when people from other bars warned us, ‘don’t go there, only fights in there!’ — guess where we went next.”

Marschall described the bars as the regulars’ “resorts.”

Marschall and Pichler would start their mornings off by bar hopping, which turned into one of Marschall’s most memorable moments from working on the book. “It’s 9 a.m., you just had your morning coffee, and then you enter a bar where they have been drinking for God knows how long — the illumination is at its peak and they have a little improvised strip show,” he said.

The regulars in these bars are typically older and know that binge drinking could be seriously damaging to their health, but they look past it. “The customers often know that they should do more about their health issues than to drown them, but they do exactly just that as long as they can,” Marschall said.

“[The people are] generally friendly and respectful, as long as you treat them with respect too,” Marschall said. “Some were quite wild cats when they were younger, some were rich, then landed in prison because of the way they had made their money. But now, this is an older generation and they sort of want to enjoy the time they have left as much as they can.”

“For me, what was interesting was to dig deeper into certain bars, going there quite frequently and seeing the dynamics,” Marschall said.

“First, they might seem like feral places without any rules, but then you see that there are definitely rules you have to follow, boundaries you must not cross — otherwise you have to leave and try your luck in another bar.”

While the bars are closing down due to old age, many of their regular customers are doing the same. “We started in early 2012, and in the meantime, more than a third of the people interviewed and photographed for this book have died,” Marschall said.

“As many bars have closed by now, it would be practically impossible to do the same book again,” Marschall said. “It’s a strange thing. I think people coming to this city in a few years will not believe that these places ever existed, because there are no signs or traces left after somebody else takes over. They’re just gone.”

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