The Local Culture Hostel & Café

What Local Culture Hostel & Café?

Jyväskylä has a long and interesting history. There are many historical signs in the street scene that take you back to the old days. Old buildings and streets are left as a nice original touch for this growing city. The hostel café is one of those historical buildings, since it is an old crown granary, built in 1851.

This was during the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. This granary was built to secure the local harvest and functioned as such until 1916. The building did not lose its purpose, but was turned into an academic library. But with the population growing, the library was not big enough to serve all inhabitants. In 1980 the library moved to a bigger location. Once again, the building was left for a new purpose. It became the Craft Museum of Finland. It has been a museum until 2000, when the museum moved to the new premises. After 2000, it became the headmaster’s administration office of the University of Jyväskylä. It served as such until 2014. After 2014 it became what we know today: The Local Culture Hostel & Café.

Hostel

The Local Culture Hostel is located near the city center of Jyväskylä, providing nice and comfortable accommodation service with affordable price (around 30 Euro per night). The rooms in the boutique hostel are designed in various theme related to Jyväskylä with beautiful views. The hostel offers two room types: the private 2-person rooms and 4-6 bedrooms. There are also shared shower and toilet facilities, comfy living room and well-equipped guest kitchen. All guests are welcome to use those facilities and enjoy their time. To be noticed that there are Vegan cooking classes held in the kitchen regularly and different types of recipes are shown in the kitchen.

 Moreover, the design and atmosphere in the living room are wonderful and relaxed. Customers can enjoy either their own quality time or having social interaction with other hostel guests there. It would be a great alternative for travelers to stay overnight in The Local Cultural Hostel instated of staying in the hotel located in the main street in Keskusta.

Café

The Local Culture Café offers to their customers a living room- styled cafeteria with quality products. They have mainly vegan and vegetarian pastries and organic coffee and tea. Cafeteria also serves Finnish breakfast every morning. Most of the products come from Jyväskylä or from the Middle-Finland region.

The design and the atmosphere of the café suit well with the idea of the company. They also have different events during the week like pub quizzes and live music evenings where you can have a glass of organic wine or an artisan brewed beer with your friends. The cafeteria is located next to the campus of Jyväskylä University so most of the clients are students. I highly recommend visiting this place, it differs from the other cafeterias the town has to offer. They have –10% discount for students so the prices are affordable.

The wide history of this building still carries on, since the Hostel and Café have not lost its original details and atmosphere. It is a great place to have coffee, lunch or stay with friends. It has many modern activities, but the building itself always has an original touch of history.

Text and pictures: Jeena Ikonen, Maria Uitto, Leung Yee Ting