Coffee houses, paying at the table and tipping

Newcomers in Vienna commonly notice two things in cafés and restaurants:

• Nobody rushes you. The traditional Viennese coffee house is a place where, in the words of the Austrian UNESCO Commission's entry on coffee house culture, "time and space are consumed, but only the coffee appears on the bill". Guests read newspapers, meet and talk.
• Tipping happens while you pay. Rather than leaving coins on the table, people usually tell the server the total they want to pay, including the tip, when they hand over the money.

• A listed tradition. Viennese coffee house culture was entered in Austria's national inventory of intangible cultural heritage in 2011. The entry describes marble tables, Thonet chairs, booths and newspaper tables, and notes that coffee houses have been places of literary exchange and political discussion since the late 17th century; newspapers were first offered in a coffee house on the Graben in 1720.
• How tipping works. A guide for international students at BOKU, a Vienna university, explains that people normally add around 10% to the bill or round up to a convenient amount, and that the tip is included in the amount you hand over. For a bill of €6.80, for example, you might hand over €10 and say "seven fifty".

How much people tip varies with the situation and the service; for small amounts, rounding up to a convenient figure is usual. The BOKU guide names taxi drivers and restaurant or bar staff as the people you are really expected to tip. Not every café is a traditional coffee house, so customs differ between places.