It was June 9, 1831, when for the first time the Pedrocchi café in Padua was inaugurated in its current architectural conformation, wanted by the roaster Antonio Pedrocchi and built on the project of the architect Giuseppe Japelli. To celebrate its first 190 years, the Pedrocchi coffee announces a great celebratory day dedicated to citizens and tourists that will be staged on Wednesday 9 June 2021 and will see the involvement of artists, institutions and the public. It will start in the morning, with a free tasting of the new Pedrocchi espresso and then continue in the afternoon with the free aperitif signed by chef Giuliano Tonon and, to follow, with live performances of painting and music and conclude the celebrations during the evening, with a charity gala dinner, served in the stalls and in the loggias of the Piano Nobile, in support of the artists who have performed at the Pedrocchi over the years.

The Paduan coffee that "hosted" the beginning of the Italian Risorgimento riots which then led to the unification of Italy, survived two world wars, and which for the first time in its history had to close its doors last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. "It is a great honor to direct one of the most important Italian historic cafes, a symbol of the rich artistic, social and cultural ferment that has always characterized our country", declares Manolo Rigoni, director of the coffee. "For almost two hundred years the Pedrocchi has been the 'heart' of Padua and every day we work to reconfirm its central role in the life of the citizens who crowd the historic rooms, and in the tourist offer of the city, with thousands of tourists who, every year, come from all over the world to enjoy the unique experience that coffee offers, to which a new exclusive blend has now been added”.

Since its inauguration in 1831 and until 1916, the Pedrocchi café has always been open, day and night, thus becoming one of the famous "three without" of Padua: the saint without a name; the lawn without grass; the cafe without doors. The nerve center of Paduan social life, the Pedrocchi has established itself as a cultural salon and a place for commercial negotiations but also for Masonic meetings, parties and dances, hosting intellectuals and illustrious writers in its rooms: the white one that recalls the Risorgimento motions with a celebratory plaque framing a bullet from the Austrians stuck in the wall; the red one with the nineteenth-century counter where the ritual of coffee at the counter is staged every day; the green, always open for less well-off citizens who could warm up and meet without the obligation to drink and which, according to local folklore, gave birth to the expression “being broke”. Remembered by Stendhal, who wrote in La Certosa di Parma: "it was in Padua that I began to see life in the Venetian way, with women sitting in cafes".

Passed under the ownership of the municipality of Padua in 1891 by the will of Domenico Cappellato Pedrocchi (adopted son of Antonio Pedrocchi), since 2014 the Pedrocchi has been managed by Fedegroup, in compliance with the will that reads: "I am a solemn and imperishable obligation to the municipality of Padua to preserve in perpetuity, in addition to the ownership, the use of the establishment as it is currently, trying to promote and develop all those improvements that will be brought by the progress of the times, putting it at the level of these and leaving nothing out so that its kind can maintain the primacy in Italy".

Roberto Imperatrice, CEO of Nabucco Holding, the company that owns Fedegroup: “In these 7 years we have worked constantly to offer the public an immersive experience in the flavors and aromas of Pedrocchi coffee, its history and its culinary tradition. From the famous Pedrocchi coffee in a large cup to the Pedrocchi cake, which combine the aroma of coffee with the olfactory notes and flavors of cocoa and mint, passing through the proposals for lunch, aperitifs and dinner, every detail has been studied to give an authentic 'taste' of Pedrocchi and we are very happy with the feedback received from the passing public and from the citizens who choose the Café without doors every day”.