Alfresco: Café Fluss in Gothenburg


Gothenburg aka Göteborg has started its preparations for celebrating the 400th birthday of the city in 2021. Coinciding with the celebrations, many projects are underway: infrastructure, commercial, artistic and aesthetic projects.

Frihamnen, is one of the happening places in Gothenburg because there is a sailing school, sauna, swimming pool, and play area for kids. In order to meet the needs of the visitors and tourists, Johan is starting a new café and restaurant called Café Fluss.

Cafe Fluss in Frihamnen: The alfresco cafe and restaurant will serve something for everyone’s taste and budget

Café Fluss is the first café and a restaurant that will serve visitors and tourists coming to the swimming pool, the best sauna in Sweden and one of the unique saunas in the world, a sailing school and several spots for kids and adults in and around Frihamnen.

Podcast: Interview with Johan Schmeling of Cafe Fluss

Johan Schmeling senses potential in Frihamnen from now and till 2021 and beyond. He says last year the area attracted 60,000 people. When they were here, he said ‘there was no place for people who came here for sauna and swimming pool to eat and drink. So I contacted them (Göteborgs Stad)’. The local government encouraged his idea, and he is starting Café Fluss.

Johan Schmeling the founder of ‘pop-up’ cafe-cum-restaurant, and co-owned by his two other business partners

Happy Spots is the company which Johan started in 2004, and Café Fluss is part of it. He says, he likes to identify areas that have potential to develop, start a pop-up like a start-up. He reckons, Frihamnen has all the ingredients to develop into one of the attractive areas of the city. The materials for the café starting from chairs to roofs are all made from recycles materials like wood and steel that have been lying in the area.

The café will also have a restaurant that will serve a semi-global cuisine ranging from Asian fusion to fish & chips and the standard dish of Swedish West Coast and Gothenburgers’ favourite räkmacka: shrimps. The idea to have an open-air café and restaurant comes from visiting cities like Berlin, London and Amsterdam.

Currently, there is a kiosk that sells coffee and icecreams but by the end of this month Café Fluss will be a full-fledged café and restaurant. It will employ about 20 people apart from the pop-ups’ three owners.