Rent Dispute Leaves Rome's Historic 1760’s Caffè Greco Shuttered and Empty
December 4 - 2025
Coffee Geography Magazine
D. L. Gemeda
For over two and a half centuries, the Antico Caffè Greco has served as more than a mere coffee house. Nestled on Rome’s elegant Via dei Condotti, its rooms have echoed with the debates and dreams of poets, composers, philosophers, and stars. Since its opening in 1760 by Nicola della Maddalena, it has stood as Rome’s oldest café, a living museum and a testament to the city’s enduring allure for the creative and the celebrated. Names like Goethe, Byron, Liszt, Keats, Wagner, Dickens, and Casanova are woven into its fabric, alongside more modern icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, and Princess Diana. It was a place where history felt tangible, where one could sip a cappuccino from the same gilded porcelain as Picasso, surrounded by portraits of former patrons like Buffalo Bill.
That profound legacy now hangs in the balance, silenced by a bitter and protracted legal dispute over rent. The café’s sudden closure last month has transformed a vibrant institution into an empty, forlorn shell on one of Rome’s most prestigious streets.
The conflict began in 2017 when the building’s owner, the Israelite Hospital of Rome—a private institution integrated with Italy’s National Health Service—sought to increase the monthly rent from 18,000 to 120,000 euros. The café’s proprietors, Carlo Pellegrini and Flavia Iozzi, argued that while they were prepared to pay a higher rate, a nearly sevenfold increase was untenable. They vowed to fight the hike, initiating a series of legal appeals.
For years, as the case wound through the courts, the café remained open, its plush red velvet chairs and ornate booths still welcoming patrons. The Ministry of Culture even stepped in early in 2025, offering to mediate a settlement to preserve this piece of Italian cultural heritage. But last month, that fragile stalemate shattered. After the proprietors lost their fifth appeal, a final eviction order was enforced with the aid of the military police. The heavy wooden doors were locked for the last time, the famous artwork and memorabilia stripped from the walls, and the furnishings removed.
The removal of the artwork, which included portraits and sculptures estimated to be worth around eight million euros, was done by the hospital over concerns about damage from a leaking pipe. Those items have since been seized by authorities and are now under the protection of the Ministry of Culture, pending the café’s uncertain future.
The Israelite Hospital maintains that its actions are financially necessary, stating that revenue from its properties is used solely to improve healthcare services for the public. It has won a series of court rulings affirming its right to seek a market-rate rent. Antonio Maria Leozappa, special commissioner for the hospital, has expressed a commitment to reopening the venue, assuring that the historic character of Antico Caffè Greco will be preserved for Romans and tourists to enjoy once more.
Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull, Black Elk and the italian journalist and writer Diego Angeli at the Caffè Greco on February 1890, during the italian tour of the Wild West Show.
However, for Pellegrini and Iozzi, and for many Romans, the eviction represents a catastrophic cultural loss and a symptom of a wider malaise. The closure is seen as part of a troubling trend of soaring commercial rents driving small, historic businesses from Rome’s center, a process accelerated by the economic pressures of the pandemic. The once-grand space now stands as a prominent eyesore, its wooden terrace bearing signs pleading that its empty planters not be used as trash bins. Curious tourists press their faces against the windows, peering into the lit but lifeless interior where no coffee is being made.
Pellegrini’s legal team insists the battle is not over, but the immediate reality is one of abandonment. The hospital must now find a new tenant willing to operate within the strict conditions set by the court to preserve the site’s historical integrity. Whether the spirit of the Antico Caffè Greco—forged over 265 years of continuous operation—can be resurrected by new management remains an open and painful question. For now, the whispers of Stendhal and the laughter of La Dolce Vita era stars have been replaced by silence, and a chapter of Roman history has been abruptly, and controversially, closed.