The claim
The Krone stands on the square it gave its name to, in a house whose foundation stone was laid in 1703 — the third on a site where a charter of 1259 names a tavern at Dietikon. Only a taverne could serve drink with food, lodge travellers and hang a sign, and this one stood on the road from Zurich to Baden. The town bought the house in 2005 and the rebuilt rooms opened again in April 2010.
What the records show
The house and German Wikipedia, which cites the city of Dietikon's 2010 history of the building, both put the first mention of a taverne here in 1259, when it belonged to Wettingen Abbey. A second publisher has now read the charter and describes it differently. Karl Grunder, writing on the Krone in the Mitteilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zürich for 2007, dates it 17 October 1259 and says it is the deed regulating the sale of Dietikon by the Habsburgs to Wettingen — so 1259 is the year the abbey bought the place rather than a year in which it already held it — and that the deed names the taverns of Dietikon and Schlieren beside the mills without describing either of them. What Grunder adds is worth more than the correction: in 1332 the landlord Jakob Bitterkraut and his wife gave up their claims on the Dietikon tavern for twenty pounds of pennies; a tavern charter of 1408, when Konrad Schmid held it, sets out four chambers, two stables and a threshing floor; a landlord named Hurst appears in 1432 and "Adelheit Stockerin, wirttin zuo Tiettikon" in 1504. Niclaus Kläui began a new tavern in 1595 and ran out of money, Hans Fischer finished it, and the Fischers held the house until 1646, when the abbey bought the lease back. An inventory of 1799 describes two vaulted cellars, a hall and five chambers on the first floor and rooms on four floors above. A taverne was the grade of licence that allowed food as well as drink, beds for travellers and a painted sign, and this one stood on the road between Zurich and Baden, well used in the days of carters and the mail coach. A bakery was fitted in 1845, the cantonal building directorate placed the group under protection on 3 November 1982, the city of Dietikon bought it on 22 August 2005, and the rooms rebuilt to Tilla Theus's design opened again on 19 April 2010. The charter itself has still not been read here, and nothing traced says whether the house poured without interruption between the bakery and the rebuilding.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1259 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1703 | Present building | Cantonal protection order and the city of Dietikon's history of the house, as summarised by German Wikipedia |
| 1259 | First record of a drinking house here | E-Periodica, ETH Library |
What to look for inside
- Named in the charter of 17 October 1259 selling Dietikon to Wettingen Abbey
- A landlord, Jakob Bitterkraut, recorded in 1332
- A tavern charter of 1408: four chambers, two stables and a threshing floor
- Present building begun 1703, with two carved baroque portals
- Bought by the city of Dietikon in 2005 and reopened in April 2010
Visiting
Taverne zur Krone is in Dietikon, Switzerland, at Kronenplatz 1, 8953 Dietikon. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- www.kronedietikon.ch/ueber-uns/
- de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krone_Dietikon
- www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=mag-001:2007:74::76
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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Free to put on your own site, no permission needed. It shows what the pub claims and what the records support, and it changes when the data does.
How to use it, and how to change what it says — if you have a document we have not seen, we would like to read it.
