The claim
A beer hall and dining room on Tjärhovsgatan, opened in 1908 as Grå Kvarn, one of some thirty houses run by Stockholm's licensed-victualling company, on a serving right carried over from Källaren Hamburg when that house shut the same year. Sam Kjellberg's arched windows and high ceiling survive, and so does the long bar. Södermalm drinks here, and so, since the 1970s, have the supporters of Hammarby.
What the records show
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 did the company's other houses; and that the serving right was carried across from Källaren Hamburg on Götgatan when that house closed in 1908. A purpose-built house opening on a transferred licence is drinking use at the claimed year, which is why the year is graded as documented, although no licensing paper of 1908 has been read - what was read is the company's history and the house's own. The name was Grå Kvarn until 1960, taken from a seventeenth-century mill that stood nearby and was gone by the 1860s. Drink alone is served: the house's bar page invites a beer and a conversation on a Tuesday lunchtime as readily as a Friday night, and OpenStreetMap, surveyed on 12 December 2025, has it open until three in the morning at weekends.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1908 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1908 | Present building | Swedish Wikipedia and the house's own chronology, which both date the opening to 1908 |
| 1908 | First record of a drinking house here | Wikipedia |
What to look for inside
- Opened in 1908 as Grå Kvarn, a house of Stockholm's licensed-victualling company
- Its serving right carried over from Källaren Hamburg on Götgatan
- Sam Kjellberg's room of 1908, and the Hammarby supporters' house
Visiting
Kvarnen is in Stockholm, Sweden, at Tjärhovsgatan 4, Stockholm. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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