‘All you can eat, pay as you wish’: buffet restaurant that trusts its customers to decide what a meal is worth still going strong after 17 years
- Der Wiener Deewan, a Pakistani restaurant in the Austrian capital Vienna, was established in 2005 by immigrant Afzaal Deewan, who had arrived the year before
- Whatever isn’t eaten in the restaurant is given away, collected every night by volunteers from a refugee organisation
Der Wiener Deewan, a Pakistani restaurant in the ninth district of the Austrian capital Vienna, has proved a successful social experiment.
It presents no prices for the food it serves and its motto, painted in bold green lettering above the door, is “All you can eat, pay as you wish”.
It’s up to the customers to decide what the food quality and meal experience are worth.
The restaurant was established in 2005 by Afzaal Deewan, 58, who had arrived in Austria as a single, 40-year-old immigrant from Pakistan the year before.
“I came to Vienna and was looking for work,” Deewan says. “I used to visit other Asian restaurants but they were very expensive. When I cooked at home I realised that the costs are much lower.”
One day, the members of an NGO located in the building where Deewan lived asked him whether he knew how to prepare Pakistani food. When Deewan said yes, he was asked to cook for a party they had organised.
