They still exist: those small cafés, inns, Branntweiner [small drinking establishments that open early in the morning], bars or, as their customers call them, dives, where time seems to have stood still. Passing by, you hear loud laughter through a half-open door, yet few people venture inside. All too often, these places make the news because of a fight or a stabbing between friends after a misunderstanding during a drinking session.
 
 
 
Klaus Pichler (photographs) and Clemens Marschall (text) chose to enter these places instead of walking past, documenting their parallel universes. Pichler photographed the customers, the daily routine, the madness and the high drama; Marschall interviewed the owners to hear their perspective. For many customers, these are the only places where they can find someone to talk to. Most of the time, the entire bar joins in the conversation. These are substitute families with their own daily rituals.
 
 
 
Bartering flourishes and people look after one another: small circles that you can join only after a certain trial period. But once you become part of the family, you stick together and drink together, all day, every day. Branntweiner open at five in the morning, other cafés at nine, and some open in the afternoon or at night, providing a round-the-clock service for an older generation of drinkers. The furniture often dates from the 1960s, and some customers have been coming for just as long. The only sign of time taking its toll is that people die. And with them, these dives.
 
 
 
Pichler and Marschall set out to find, document and explore the last of these refuges for a disappearing generation of drinkers. On countless walks through Vienna, they found some of these places in their final days. The book is a swansong for bars that have shaped their customers' lives for decades, places that will soon disappear forever.