Thank you, late-night café and ice cream parlour.

It’s 11pm on a Monday night. I just handed over 90 cents for a scoop of tiramisu ice cream. Now I’m clutching the cone as I type. I think the word is content.

People get so happy about this place that they can’t help but have a little dance.

I first discovered Kauf Dich Glücklich with a friend a few months ago: we were going to a midnight showing of Casablanca at Lichtblickkino just around the corner, and needed coffee. But of course all the hard-working baristas had already cleaned their coffee machines. Desperately we marched on, until on Oderberger Strasse… was that a light still on?! It was more like several – that string of fairy lights around its sign was a beacon of hope.

 What ARE you?

The first thing that happens when you come in is that you are squeezed between a wall and a beautiful rainbow of ice cream flavours, and right next to your face are sundae glasses filled with silly plastic things. After ordering coffee – oh Lord thank you!! – I tore myself away from a 20-cent tentacle finger puppet and we nestled ourselves into some cosy if corny leather chairs. Because it’s normal to be served steaming cups of caffeinated beverages at half eleven at night, right?

From then on, I couldn’t stop thinking about this place. I came back again, I tried the waffles. I loved the waffles. They might not look much…

…but they’re fresh, filling, and I bet they’d make an awesome change from Döner kebabs as a post-drinking snack.

I think the main thing that makes me so häppy about this place is that I can finally have an answer to those lonely late nights, without having to find a random person to be my drinking partner, and without having to drink at all. Berlin bars, you are nice, but the thing is, you’re a whole different breed. Your chillaxed attitude is way too serious for a weeknight pick-me-up. Kauf Dich Glücklich may have – definitely has some things that are trying hard to be chillaxed, too. Except it also has a heap of other things with googly eyes and bright colours that are laughing at the coolness around them. And this friendly supply of ice cream, coffee and waffles is not only close to me, it’s open late into the night. So if life is just lacking, I can break the rules and trade in a couple of euros for a cosy cuddle-up with a cappuccino.

Kauf Dich Glücklich
Oderberger Straße 44
Prenzlauer Berg

Mon-Fri: 11 am – ca. 1 am
Sat-Sun: 10 am – ca. 1 am
(If you want them to stay open late, keep ordering!)

BY THE WAY:
KDG actually has two outposts in Berlin:
The café/ice-cream parlour with bits-and-bobs,
and a clothes café on Kastanienallee.
And apparently they have shops in lots of other cities
(but none of them cafés, mwahaha).