Cafe Viola
Alingsås

At Violas, you can find typical swedish cookies and buns, together with traditional sandwiches. Café Viola is well known for both their meatball- and shrimp sandwiches - which are a must have there. The café has a tradtition of being visited by many workers and labourers during the years, so the pies and sandwiches are large enought to feed someone who has been working hard for many hours. 

The Story of Café Viola

Fridolf Wilhelm Nyman (1843–1907), one of Alingsås’ earliest chroniclers, wrote in his diaries that around 1880 there were three temperance inns in Alingsås. Café Viola, which opened in 1889, became one of them.

It was originally run by Jenny and Ida Carlsson. Many farmers visited the café on market days, as there was a stable just across the street—belonging to Sandberg’s grocery—that could accommodate seven horses.

The Alingsås Telephone Company, founded in 1883 by Mayor Oscar Bergmark, was located on the second floor of the same building as the café.

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, sisters Ida and Sofia Eliasson from Lena took over the café. In 1914, their niece Alma Hallkvist joined them and eventually became the owner. The three women lived in a small room behind the kitchen, furnished with just a rocking chair and a pull-out sofa, which they also used for sleeping. The café kitchen doubled as their personal kitchen. The coffee pot, made of copper, was rectangular and had two spouts. It sat directly on a wood-burning stove.

In the 1950s, Svea Rödholm took over Café Viola. During her time, the café had loyal regulars whose names were engraved on small copper plaques above their favorite seats in the right-hand room.