I just made some updates to my “Vegan Vienna” list, and due to several noticeable developments I thought I’d give a “spring 2026” update:
1) Much to my surprise, Swing Kitchen, whose holding company Schillinger Vegan Holding, filed for insolvency last year, had to close all locations which it owned & operated. Only two restaurants, which are owned by franchisees, escaped unscathed. Fortunately, the brand seems to survive under new ownership; I suspect the new owners bought what was left of the company, or at least the rights to the brand name, from the insolvent estate. The Swing Kitchen website is now registered to the BLOCH3 Swing Kitchen GmbH, which is owned by Martin Blochberger, one of two new general managers, and the BlochF GmbH, which is a corporation wholly owned by Franz Blochberger, Swing Kitchen’s other manager. Several members of the Blochberger family were investors in the Schillinger Vegan Holding company since it was established in 2014.
Various members of two generations of the Blochberger family own the organic Eis-Greissler ice cream chain in Austria, and the family also invests in new energy projects (photovoltaics, wind farms, and biogas projects) through their BLOCH3 GmbH. All in all, I am very happy that this family now owns the rights to the Swing Kitchen brand. I suspect that they will re-open some of the restaurants at their former locations, and maybe open additional restaurants in the coming years. I’m sure they’ll make some changes, but I expect Swing Kitchen to remain a vegan restaurant brand.
2) Harvest Bistrot is struggling financally, and I sincerely hope that this restaurant will manage to stay in business. They’ve been struggling since 2020, when the COVID epidemic wreaked havoc on their business. In 2025, the restaurant started a fundraiser to help pay old bills, and they did manage to raise a considerable amount of money. According to the information on the restaurant’s website, they raised appr. 13,000.00 Euros by the end of 2025, but need 30,000.00 Euros to pay their bills. (As of March 30, 2026, Harvest Bistrot is still in business!) Please donate, or eat a meal at this restaurant. It would be a shame if Harvest Bistrot did not manage to survive.
3) After 38 years, Vegetasia’s main location at Ungargasse 57 closed in 2025. According to Marko Locatin from Gastro News, the restaurant didn’t re-open after a prolonged period of “renovations.” I’m not sure I believe the stated reason.
For many years, the restaurant (Vegetasia, Experimental Soya GmbH) was managed reliably by Cynthia Chang, who passed the restaurant on to her daughter Jacqueline a few years ago when she retired. (The company’s name was changed to Changlee-La GmbH in 2025.) Since Mrs. Chang’s daughter took over, opening hours have been erratic, and the restaurant was closed repeatedly for extended periods of time during the last few years; “renovation” was repeatedly cited as the reason. I grew so frustrated with the prolonged closing periods during the last few years – several months at a time – that I stopped eating at this restaurant altogether. It’s not a complete surprise that the restaurant was closed for good in 2025.
In February of 2023, Jacqueline Chang opened a second restaurant in Vienna’s 4th district – a tiny place, mostly geared towards take-away customers – which was always closed whenever I wanted to eat there. I must have checked on this location at least half a dozen times in person during the last few years, and it was always closed whenever I got there. (It should’ve been open at those times, according to the published opening hours.) According to the information published on Vegetasia’s website (in March 2026), Vegetasia still exists at this second location, but has no regular opening hours. You need to make reservations in advance. Considering that at this location, Vegetasia is but a tiny restaurant without customer bathrooms, I doubt this open-only-on-demand-concept will succeed.
It’s a shame, really, that Vegetasia at Ungargasse 57 in Vienna’s 3rd district closed, but according to Marko Locatin, another vegan restaurant is supposed to open at that location within the next few months (spring-summer 2026).