Stop 6 · Gossip Walk
Virág
Virág Confectionery · Klauzál tér, New Zsótér House
Two Herend coffee machines, one mystery: nobody has seen the original behind the counter since 1999.
It opened in 1874 as Allemann & Co.'s confectionery, on the ground floor of the New Zsótér House on Klauzál tér. In 1922 the Virágh family of confectioners from Temesvár bought it, and it took their name. In 1928 they won a gold medal at the Paris world exhibition.
It was nationalised in 1950. According to the local paper, the family lost everything so completely that József Virágh couldn't even go back for his hat. That is when the name lost its “h”.
Poet Attila József often had breakfast here, and Open-Air Festival performers have been coming since the 1930s.
The legend is the coffee machine clad in Herend porcelain. It was made after the Second World War (one article says 1951), later restored, and an Italian Faema now works inside it. In 1999, when the confectioner family running the place left, the machine disappeared from the café.
This is where it gets murky. The former operating family says the city's bailiffs took it. A later operator said it was his, but he didn't know where it was. The repairman who maintained it says it has been with him since 2002 because his repairs were never paid for; the lawsuit ended without a ruling on the machine. A 2010 official inspection found a rented, similar Herend machine in the café.
In 2010 the Virág closed with half a billion forints of debt and reopened in 2016. The new operator believed the original was “industrial waste”; the machine on the counter is Herend too, he says, but not the original. In 2017 the original was waiting in pieces in a storeroom. The city didn't claim it, because it wasn't on the inventory. We haven't found any news of it since.
Open in the app →Animated scene, old photos, stamps and the full map. Free, nothing to install.Facts and labels
- TrueVirág(h) since 1922, Paris gold medal in 1928.
- TrueNationalised in 1950, when the name lost its “h”.
- TrueThe original Herend machine vanished from the café in 1999. In 2017 it was in pieces in a storeroom.
- Open questionWhere is the original machine today, and who owns it? Unresolved.
People say
The story goes that when József Attila was a university student, the owner of the Virág sometimes treated him to a free breakfast. Back then the founders of the patisserie were known as the “Gerbeaud of Szeged”.
Where it was said: Széchenyi tér és környéke (irodalmiradio.hu szegedi irodalmi séta)