IN MEMORY H.W. SCHIMANKO 1944 - 2005 


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The Man with the Bald Head and Mustache: Schimankos signature style was his bald head and mustache that closely resembled the mustache of Emperor Franz Josef.  He was famous as the unofficial nightclub King in Vienna.  Although Eden Bar was his home, he also owned the society meeting point Reiss Bar, Moulin Rouge, Eden Bar, and the Hotel Orient (over a hundred years old!) located in Tief Graben.  His career in gastronomy began in 1971 with the acquisition of a bar in Schwechat for 500,000 schillings.  “With debts,” is how he put it in the previous September an interview with the Standard.
Always exercising.  Even then he was considered a “bear,” a picture of manliness.  He always enjoyed exercising, something which he started as a teenage.  He first started training with a pole made from concrete reinforcements with two filled concrete balls attached at the ends.  Later he moved to a gym to train.
 

Money as a career advancer.  Schimanko never made a secret out of his career motive.  “Money.”  He did not have a father from whom he inherited money, and after the war and his life was in ruins, all he wanted was prosperity.  He was finally debt-free only after the expansion of his pub-emporium, working “13 years without any vacation and 18 hour days.”  Including the status symbol of a Rolls Royce.  In 1975, Schimanko purchased the Eden Bar, and thus fulfilled a dream from his youth.  The first time he was in the Eden Bar, he was a 19 year old civil soldier.  At that time, he saved the bottle of wine from which he drank.
Everyone welcome in the Eden Bar: Schimanko did change the philosophy a little: “The base was too small.  One could not live off the aristocrats or economists.  By me, all respectable people are welcome.”