Plachého street (Plachanda) — and Plachý Café

Plachého Street, locally Plachanda, is the narrowest lane by the Budějovice square, a few steps from Samson’s Fountain — and in the last few years it has become the place people in Budějovice go to eat. It used to be called Svinská, and not by chance: pigs were driven to market through it.

In a few dozen metres there is a café, a bakery, Neapolitan pizza, two confectioners and Spanish, Venezuelan and Czech cooking. Most of the places opened in recent years and locals mainly go there; tourists stop on the square and miss the lane.

It started with the small espresso bar Plachý Café, which Honza Ašenbryl opened here in 2017 as the town’s first specialty-coffee spot. At his little bar people confide so readily that regulars call it the confessional.

Plachého street has had many names over the centuries. According to historian Jan Schinko it was long called Kyselá (Sour), and the stretch from the square Loternní lane. There was a wine house At the Ašenbrýls and a shop for musical instruments.

For a time it was also called Pig Street — or Svinská. The reason is exactly the one you would guess, and Schinko states it without fuss: “Through the lane horses, pigs and the like were driven to the market on the square, because the four main entrances to the square made that undignified.” So: four main corner entrances for people. And for livestock, that narrow lane beside them.

Why it never quite thrived

Schinko adds one more remark that explains its whole history. Commercially it always suffered a little — not because it was ugly or far away. “It had the potential of U Černé věže street. But it suffered from not being passable through to the orchards.” One bridge was missing. Residents of Plachého street asked the town for a bridge over the Mlýnská stoka to the orchards so that people would walk on through and not end in a dead end. The town council refused. So the street remained what it was: a narrow shortcut you can walk, but that leads nowhere.

What used to be here

According to Schinko its fame came from Anička Krčmářová, daughter of a musical-instrument dealer and a piano virtuoso. There was the Příhoda and Danzer sweet factory. The wine house U Kolářů. And the wine house U Ašenbrýlů. Remember that last name.

And what is here today

In the last few years the street became something no one in Budějovice expected. Plachý Café opened in 2017 by Honza Ašenbryl — at a time when, in his words, specialty coffee in Budějovice was “as rare as saffron” and there was no dedicated espresso bar. He did not choose the house by chance. It was a chance to open a place in the house where his own great-grandfather had already done celebrated hospitality a hundred and twenty years earlier. The wine house U Ašenbrýlů that Schinko recalls as old memory of the street belonged to his family. After a hundred and twenty years, coffee returned to the same house.

Around it the rest arrived: Plachá 25 — Michaela Fürstová’s bakery, trained partly on stints in Copenhagen bakeries; croissants, sourdough and coffee. Pizza Paranormala by Katka Kuthanová and Martin Kudrlička — Neapolitan pizza from organic flour, sourdough cold-proofed at least forty-eight hours. La Bodega with Spanish cooking, Paraguana with Venezuelan. Panský šenk with Czech cooking and a fireplace for meat specials. The pastry shops Kremrolka and La Cukrárna.

From a lane that drove pigs to market it became the place where Budějovice goes to eat.

On site

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