The Battle of New York's Viking Cafés!
Plus! A dog run tale!! Pumpkin spice gone wild!!!
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Issue #184 of CAFÉ ANNE!
So in the last issue, which had me sampling NYC’s worst pizza, I asked what “worst” category I should tackle next. Suggestions flooded in.
“I would love for you to see a movie in the lowest-rated theater in the city,” wrote Emily in Forest Hills. “Worst rated bar? Could be dangerous!” suggested David on the Upper East Side. Other requests: bowling ally, thrift store, post office, bodega and playground.
My favorite suggestion came from Annie G. in Gramercy. “Maybe worst dog park?” she emailed. “NYC is notorious for having bad dog park culture. Basically means they’re too small and too full of people sitting around the perimeter looking at their phones. During my personal worst dog park visit, one person called another person a c—, and then the other people told him to go home and kill himself. I believe the fight was about a ball that one of them deemed too big for dog park use.”
I’ll definitely get to dog parks soon, Annie. But first I’ll get to the top-requested category—worst bagel shop. My data guy is on it!
In other news, huge every-story-needs-a-subsidy shoutouts to our newest paid subscribers Laura B., Jerry T., Annie G., Josh K., Jon BCK, Elaine S. and Edwat. That’s enough $$$ to sample 100 bagels! I’ll need more cash for cream cheese, however. Venmo me here!
I am very excited for this week’s issue, of course. We’ve got a look at some bonkers pumpkin spice merch along with a showdown between NYC’s two Viking cafés. Please enjoy.
Regards!
Anne
EAT UNLIMITED BAGELS AT THE NEW YORK BAGELFEST - NOVEMBER 16
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DEPT. OF ETERNAL RECURRENCE
Pumpkin Spice is Coming for Your Hermit Crab!
We all assumed that the autumnal pumpkin spice madness—which started with Starbucks launching the pumpkin spice latte in 2003—was a dumb passing trend. But no. Decades later, it’s only getting worse. Behold:
Pumpkin Spice Cookie Hermit Crab Food
Manufacturer: MT Pet Emporium
Cost: 99¢/cookie
Manufacturer’s description: “These are pumpkin spice cookies for hermit crabs! Although pumpkin spice is typically a fall flavor, these can be offered all the time!”
Ingredients: Pumpkin, oats, turmeric and egg
Actual online consumer review: “Was as described, crabs seemed to enjoy it. Thank you!”
Hefty Cinnamon Pumpkin Spice Kitchen Trash Bags
Manufacturer: Reynold’s Consumer Products
Cost: $23.44 (40 count)
Seller’s description: “These scented trash bags include patented Arm & Hammer continuous odor control and a festive Cinnamon Pumpkin Spice scent to keep unpleasant smells at bay.”
Actual online consumer review: “These smell terrific - even when full of garbage!”
Wild Willy Pumpkin Spice Fuel Fragrance
Manufacturer: Wild Willy
Cost: $4.99
Manufacturer’s description: “This Fragrance Will Make Your Exhaust Smell Like Pumpkin Spice/Pumpkin Bread!
1 oz Bottle Treats 5 Gallons of Fuel
This Wild Willy Fuel Fragrance Smells DELICIOUS but it is not intended to be food.
DO NOT EAT OR DRINK!
REMEMBER FRIENDS; FUEL FRAGRANCE CAN NEVER MAKE ANY EXHAUST SAFE TO BREATHE! NEVER INTENTIONALLY INHALE EXHAUST FUMES!!”
Dawn Pumpkin Spice Powerwash Spray
Manufacturer: Procter & Gamble
Price: $5.94 (16 oz)
Manufacturer’s description: “A true autumnal product with hints of pumpkin, apple, and citrus…sold exclusively at Walmart.”
Actual online consumer review: “Smell gets a little less nice every time, but that’s a me problem.”
Pumpkin Spice Car Wash
Business: Quick Quack Car Wash
Price: $14.99
Description: “Despite its name, no actual pumpkin is used in our pumpkin spice scented washes. Rather, we use a proprietary blend of cinnamon, cloves and other spices for our fall scent. We then release the scent during the wash so you receive an immersive experience of lights, colors and scents.”
Actual online customer comment: “Who smells the outside of their car? That’s f—’d up.”
COFFEE ADVENTURE
The Battle of New York’s Viking Cafés!
Remember back in July, I wrote about the horrible $28 coffee at the WatchHouse café in the Chrysler Building? After the story ran, Lennarrrt O., a reader in Sweden, wrote to suggest another Manhattan coffee adventure: “Have you tasted the coffee and the kanelbullar, Swedish style, at the Swedish Church on 48th Street in Midtown East?”
No, I had not. There’s a Swedish church in Midtown? With a café? And what the heck is a kanelbullar?
A quick search revealed that a kanelbullar is a Swedish cinnamon bun. And there is indeed a branch of the Svenska Kyrkan—aka Church of Sweden—in Midtown.
The church’s website was in Swedish, and didn’t seem to offer any info on the coffee front, so I sent an email asking if they actually have a café open to the public. I got a reply from someone named Oloff. “We are open to nice people,” he wrote.
Did I qualify as “nice people”? There was only one way to find out!
Reader, I was expecting a dreary church basement affair. To my surprise, the café, which occupies the first floor of the church, is probably one of the prettiest rooms in Midtown.
The spacious space includes an extensive Swedish reading library, marble-top tables and a great shop featuring Scandinavian food and gifts. At the back counter, very tall blonde volunteers were taking orders for flatbread sandwiches, sweet buns and coffee. Boy, was I in for a treat! I ordered a cappuccino.
But they did not offer cappuccino. There were no espresso drinks at all, in fact, which is weird for a Manhattan café in 2025. When I opted for the $3 drip coffee, the counterman handed me a paper cup and directed me to serve myself—gas-station style—from the thermal carafe hiding in a little nook under the stairs.
I enjoyed the lovely room, the low buzz of chatter, the fresh flowers and tiny reading lamp on my table. And the coffee was pretty good! But it was lukewarm, as if it had been sitting around all afternoon in a thermal carafe. Which it had been.
Hmph! According to the Times of India (my go-to source for coffee stats), the world’s top six per-capita coffee consumption countries are all in Scandinavia, where the heavy caffeine intake keeps the suicide rate relatively stable. I expected a better coffee experience from the Church of Sweden!
I knew what I had to do: report this to the authorities.
I returned several weeks later with my “friend” Aharon, who really knows coffee. I was excited to get his take. I expected he’d be horrified.
“Much too nice for New York,” he said, glancing around the café.
“I was thinking this is the nicest place I’ve ever seen that they would let me into,” I said.
“That’s right,” said Aharon.
We admired the gift shop. “You know the name for Swedish cheez doodles?” said Aharon. “Cheez doodles.”
We placed our order at the counter: two coffees, a cinnamon bun and—because it looked extremely tempting—a cardamom bun.
We found a table and sat down with our coffee. Aharon took a sip. “It’s pretty good!” he declared.
I waited for him to elaborate, but he did not.
“So were you surprised at the self-serve situation?” I pressed.
“Yes,” he said.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I have two words for you,” he said. “Socialism.”
We had to agree, however, that the cardamom bun was top notch. “Exceptional,” Aharon declared. It definitely made up for the room-temperature coffee.
Curious what was up with the gas-station-style coffee service, I struck up a conversation with Rebecka, one of the Swedish volunteers behind the counter.
The busy café is a popular gathering spot for Swedish expats and churchgoers, she said, but also attracts a lot of local students and office workers; profits help support the church.
They keep the coffee service streamlined because the small volunteer staff can’t handle more. “It would take us way too much time to do cappuccinos and lattes,” she said.
It’s also a minimalist thing: “Swedes are no-frills people.”
And then she let it slip: “The Norwegian Church also has something like this,” she said. “Further up, and on the East Side.”
“What!?!?” I said. “We should do a competition!”
Rebecka shook her head. “No,” she laughed. “The competition between Sweden and Norway is already big enough!”
But it was too late.
The café at the Norwegian Seaman’s Church on East 52nd Street was harder to find than its Swedish counterpart. If it weren’t for the A-frame sign set out on the sidewalk, I’d have walked right by. A small paper sign taped to the church door read, “Velkommen til Sjomannskirken i New York! Ring pa til venestre for doren, sa apner vi!”
I wasn’t sure which bell to press, so I tried the lower button and promptly got buzzed in. I stepped into a hallway and a young fellow came out to greet me.
“Hello!” I said. “Is there a café here?”
“Yes,” he said, and I followed him down the hall into a cavernous space that was half church, half dining room, and utterly deserted.
“We have coffee and waffles, and there is a small shop,” he said.
His name was Eirik, it turns out. He is from Norway and serves as the church’s diakonal medarbeider, which includes tending the café.
The venue mainly serves as a post-service gathering spot for the Lutheran congregation of about 70 Norwegians. They also come on Saturday for the $5 rice porridge special. Outsiders are welcome Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 4 pm—but few know it exists.
At my request, Eirik gave me a tour of the gift shop. The most popular item? The oversized Freia Melkesjokolade (milk chocolate) bars. I decided to buy one for a Norwegian friend.
“And you cannot compare this to Hershey’s” said Eirik.
“Oh really!” I said. “So I should get myself one too?”
“Or not, because you can’t eat Hershey’s afterward,” said Eirik. “It’s not a joke! Hershey’s are terrible afterward!”
Other treats included caramel sauce, black currant syrup and ketchup. “Why would someone buy Norwegian ketchup?” I wondered.
“I don’t know,” said Eirik.
“Fish balls!” I exclaimed, spotting a tin on a lower shelf. ‘What do you do with the fish balls?”
“Eat them for dinner,” said Eirik.
I took the chocolate to the register and my phone rang. It was Aharon. He’d been waiting for me outside. Eirik buzzed him in.
“This seems like more of a service for Norwegian people than a public café,” I said, as we waited for Aharon.
Eirik agreed that they haven’t put much effort into attracting the public. “And I don’t think we will, necessarily. We don’t have the time.”
When Aharon arrived, I ordered the only item on the menu: coffee and waffles, $5.
Both the coffee and the waffles were offered self-serve, from a long table in the center of the room. The waffle quarters, arrayed on a glass-covered cake pedestal, were offered with raspberry jam from a squirt bottle. The coffee, just like at the Swedish Church café, was served from a thermal carafe. There was no milk, but Eirik brought out a little pitcher of heavy cream.
The room-temperature waffles were delicious! The coffee, also room temperature, was not the best I’ve ever had. Eirik revealed the brand: Kirkland.
“Oh, the store brand from Costco,” I said. “No Norwegian coffee?”
“No,” said Eirik. “That would be stupid expensive.”
I really liked Eirik, and asked if I could take his photo. He declined and suggested that Aharon take my photo in front of the Norwegian mountain scene hanging in the gift shop instead: “Then everyone will think you’re in Norway.”
We sat so I could drink my coffee and admire the room. Fireplace, altar, comfy arm chairs, a dozen tables topped with fresh white roses and electric candles. It’d be a great place to bring your laptop and get some work done. Or hide from the Swedish mafia.
I’d definitely return and bring a friend to either of NYC’s two Viking cafés, I told Aharon. “But if you could come back to just one of them,” I asked, “which would you come back to?”
“Oh Anne,” he said. “I think you know.”
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I don't know how you pack so much delight into each newsletter, but YOU HAVE DONE IT AGAIN! I had to google whether Wild Willy's Fuel Fragrance was a real thing 😂😂 And I loved reading about the secret self-serve Scandinavian cafes. There are so many delightful little finds in NYC, and I can't wait to read about which one you discover next! Thanks for taking us along on the ride!
What about the Finnish Reformed Church on the LES that serves herring on toast with coffee?