Originally opened in 1863 as the Café Hochleitner at one of the best addresses in Vienna, the café was primarily a meeting place for entrepreneurs and businesspeople. One of the most famous regulars of Café Schwarzenberg was architect and designer Josef Hoffmann, who sketched many of his designs at the coffeehouse. After the Second World War, the café served as an events space for the Red Army for a time. In 1980, it was taken on by the City of Vienna and refurnished. This is where the now popular chandeliers come in. They were designed by Stefan Rath Jr. and are a mixture of typical Biedermeier and the Empire style. They were supplemented with elements that became common in around 1890, when electric light bulbs made their way into lighting: hanging lights to perfectly illuminate a table.