Caffe Greco, Rome’s oldest coffee bar, founded by the Greek immigrant Nicola della Maddalena in 1760, shut down permanently last week.
For more than two and a half centuries, Caffe Greco had remained a haven for writers, politicians, artists, and notable people in Rome.
Everyone from Charles Dickens, Henry James, Orson Welles, and John Keats, who lived a stone’s throw away, to Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, and Princess Diana has passed through its doors.
Memorabilia attests to the day in 1890, when Buffalo Bill swung by for coffee with a group of cowboys. Three hundred works of art hang on the bar’s burgundy walls.
The Italian Ministry of Public Education recognized its importance in 1953, declaring the cafe, its furnishings, and its artworks a protected “cultural asset” and a place of historical and national interest.
Caffe Greco lost legal battle
The eviction of Rome’s historic cafe happened as it lost a long-standing legal battle with the Israelite Hospital, which owns the building. Despite a final ruling from the Supreme Court of Cassation in July 2024 that gave the hospital the right to reclaim the property, the eviction was delayed. The cafe’s lease originally expired in 2017.
According to the owner, Carlo Pellegrini, Caffe Greco had made several generous offers to the Israelite Hospital, including an annual rent of €800,000 (around $933,450) or a €10 million (around $11,668,250) offer to purchase the property outright. The offer was rejected.
