Which is the oldest pub in Stockholm?

Of the three here, the earliest drinking recorded on premises still standing is Pelikan's, from 1904, in a house built that year as the krog Port Arthur. Its 1664 belongs to a cellar in the old town pulled down in 1931. Kvarnen follows in 1908 and Zum Franziskaner about 1910.

Was Zum Franziskaner founded by friars in 1421?

Several Stockholm guides print the story, and the survey that looked hardest at it says the fifteenth-century origin has no historical backing. The house itself claims nothing beyond being one of the city's oldest restaurants. Visit Stockholm and an interview with its owner both give 1889, in an earlier building on the same corner.

The Swedish word for a tavern or eating house — a room where food and drink are both served, rather than a bar. Two of these three were purpose-built as krogar for the company licensed to sell spirits in Stockholm from 1876, to the drawings of the same architect, Sam Kjellberg, within four years of each other.

Can you drink at these three without eating?

At all three, and each says so in its own words. Pelikan's bar page calls the big bar a watering hole to slip into on the spur of the moment; Kvarnen's invites a beer and a conversation on a Tuesday lunchtime; Zum Franziskaner keeps two stand-up bars where the full menu is not served.

How far apart are they?

Pelikan and Kvarnen are both on Södermalm, roughly ten minutes' walk apart with Kvarnen the nearer to Slussen. Zum Franziskaner is across the water on Skeppsbron, the quay along the eastern edge of the old town, and takes no bookings at all, so arriving early is the only reservation available.

3 pubs checked · updated 25 October 2026

The oldest pub in Stockholm

The short answer

Oldest claim

Pelikan

Says 1664. The first record is 1904.

Grade C · Tradition

Stockholm's oldest claim and its earliest record belong to the same house and are two hundred and forty years apart. Pelikan on Blekingegatan prints 1664, and its own history page puts that year on a wine cellar in the old town, three addresses away, whose last building came down in 1931; the room a drinker sits in was built in 1904 as the krog Port Arthur. Kvarnen opened in 1908, and Zum Franziskaner has stood on its corner of Skeppsbron since about 1910, in a building that replaced the one it opened in. All three of the city's rooms were made ready within seven years of each other.

Stockholm's three old drinking rooms were all built or occupied between 1904 and 1910, which looks like a coincidence and is a licensing system. The city's spirit trade was licensed from 1876 to a non-profit company, Stockholms utskänkningsaktiebolag, which came to run some thirty houses and at the turn of the century began building its own; two of the three here are its work, raised on Blekingegatan and Tjärhovsgatan four years apart to the same architect's drawings. What that leaves a reader with is a city where the dates over the doors are a great deal older than the doors. Pelikan's 1664 is a name: a cellar opened by the wine-server Hans Georg Cron on Österlånggatan, moved twice, demolished in 1931, and the name handed to a different house in 1969 by the state restaurant company that owned both. Zum Franziskaner's 1889 belongs to an earlier building on the same corner, demolished before the house returned to the rebuilt site about 1910, and a founding of 1421 by Franciscan friars circulates about it which nothing published supports. Kvarnen is the only one of the three whose year is its own, and even that arrived second-hand: it opened on a serving right carried over from Källaren Hamburg on Götgatan when that house shut in 1908. Two of these three trade under a name they did not open with, and the third in a building that replaced the one it opened at.

A name, a right and an address

Pelikan carries a name that outlived its building. Hans Georg Cron opened the cellar Pelikan on Österlånggatan in 1664; the krog moved to Svartmangatan in 1720 and on to Brunnsbacken by Slussen in 1733, where it traded for nearly two hundred years until the block came down in 1931. The room on Blekingegatan that now holds the name was finished in 1904 under another one. Kvarnen inherited something less visible and more to the point — the serving right of Källaren Hamburg on Götgatan, carried across when that house closed in 1908 — and traded as Grå Kvarn until 1960, after a seventeenth-century mill that stood nearby and was gone by the 1860s. Zum Franziskaner inherited an address: it opened in 1889 in a building of about 1620 on Skeppsbron, from the years when that quay first served the city; the building was demolished, and the house returned to the site about 1910, which is the date of the Art Nouveau panelling and stucco in the old beer hall.

What is actually in the rooms

Pelikan’s great room sits under painted beams and a bowed window, with Swedish home cooking at the tables and a long bar beside them. Kvarnen’s hall keeps Sam Kjellberg’s arched windows and high ceiling, and it has been the house of Hammarby’s supporters since the 1970s. Zum Franziskaner’s old beer hall is the dining room now, and its two smaller bars are where a glass is served without a table; Franconian casks are tapped there and left to run without added gas, and the house names the dates of its Franconian fasting festival years ahead. The company and the drink ordinance that between them produced all three are set out on the oldest pubs in Sweden, along with the Gothenburg beer hall that holds the country’s earliest record. The nearest comparison abroad, where the surviving rooms are also twentieth-century and the dates also come from encyclopaedias rather than archives, is the oldest pubs in Norway, and how a claim is weighed against a record here is in the methodology.

Stockholm

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The contenders, oldest claim first

ClaimProof

Pelikan
Grade C
Stockholm, Sweden
The 1664 the house prints belongs to another building in another part of Stockholm, and the house says so itself. Its history page has the wine-server Hans Georg Cron opening the cellar Pelikan on Österlånggatan in the old town in 1664, the krog moving to Svartmangatan in 1720 and on to Brunnsbacken by Slussen in 1733, where it traded for nearly two hundred years until the block came down in 1931. These rooms are a
Claims 1664; first recorded 1904; building c.1904.
Zum Franziskaner
Grade C
Stockholm, Sweden
A founding in 1421 by Franciscan friars, licensed by Erik of Pomerania to charge for food and drink, is printed by several Stockholm guides and is the reason this house turns up on lists of the oldest restaurants in the world. Nothing supports it. The Hidden North's survey of Stockholm's historic restaurants says flatly that the fifteenth-century origin has no historical backing and gives 1889 as the opening year
Dated 1889 in the press; first recorded 1910; building c.1910.
Kvarnen
Grade A
Stockholm, Sweden
The 1908 is the house's own and nothing traced contradicts it: its chronology has building begun on Tjärhovsgatan in 1906 and the centenary kept in October 2008. Swedish Wikipedia supplies what the house leaves out - that it opened as Grå Kvarn, one of some thirty houses belonging to Stockholms utskänkningsaktiebolag, the company licensed from 1876 to sell spirits in the city; that Sam Kjellberg designed it, as he
Claims 1908; first recorded 1908; building c.1908.

Photo credits

Common questions

Which is the oldest pub in Stockholm?: Of the three here, the earliest drinking recorded on premises still standing is Pelikan's, from 1904, in a house built that year as the krog Port Arthur. Its 1664 belongs to a cellar in the old town pulled down in 1931. Kvarnen follows in 1908 and Zum Franziskaner about 1910.
Was Zum Franziskaner founded by friars in 1421?: Several Stockholm guides print the story, and the survey that looked hardest at it says the fifteenth-century origin has no historical backing. The house itself claims nothing beyond being one of the city's oldest restaurants. Visit Stockholm and an interview with its owner both give 1889, in an earlier building on the same corner.
What is a krog?: The Swedish word for a tavern or eating house — a room where food and drink are both served, rather than a bar. Two of these three were purpose-built as krogar for the company licensed to sell spirits in Stockholm from 1876, to the drawings of the same architect, Sam Kjellberg, within four years of each other.
Can you drink at these three without eating?: At all three, and each says so in its own words. Pelikan's bar page calls the big bar a watering hole to slip into on the spur of the moment; Kvarnen's invites a beer and a conversation on a Tuesday lunchtime; Zum Franziskaner keeps two stand-up bars where the full menu is not served.
How far apart are they?: Pelikan and Kvarnen are both on Södermalm, roughly ten minutes' walk apart with Kvarnen the nearer to Slussen. Zum Franziskaner is across the water on Skeppsbron, the quay along the eastern edge of the old town, and takes no bookings at all, so arriving early is the only reservation available.