Vienna sausage stands seek UN recognition

VIENNA, Austria (AFP) — From top bankers and politicians to students and factory workers, Vienna’s popular sausage stands heaving with bratwurst and meaty delicacies are a longstanding cultural legacy they hope to be recognized by the United Nations (UN) Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The owners of 15 stands in the Austrian capital have formed a lobbying group and applied last week to have the “Vienna sausage stand culture” inscribed as intangible cultural heritage by the UN agency.

“We want to create a kind of quality seal for Vienna sausage stands,” said 36-year-old Patrick Tondl, one of the association’s founders whose family owns Leo’s Wuerstelstand — Vienna’s oldest operating sausage stand.

“At the sausage stand, everyone is the same... No matter if you’re a top banker who earns hundreds of thousands of euros or if you have to scrape together the last euros to buy a sausage... You meet here, you can talk to everyone,” he adds.

High inflation driving consumers looking for affordable meals, plus a new wave of vendors with updated flavors, have helped keep the stands busy.

Tondl’s great-grandfather started their business in the late 1920s, pulling a cart behind him and selling sausages at night.

The family’s customers have included former chancellor Bruno Kreisky, recalls Vera Tondl, 67, who runs the shop together with her son Patrick.

Leo’s is one of about 180 sausage stands in Vienna today, out of a total of about 300 food stands, selling fast food at fixed locations and open until the early hours, according to the city’s economic chamber.

Whereas the number of stands has remained similar over the last decade, more than a third have changed from selling sausages to kebabs, pizza and noodles, a spokesperson for the chamber told Agence France-Presse.