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Streifzüge 3 – Das OTOTO in Wien

von Johannes Schartner

Im dritten Teil von Johannes „Semfmaster3000“ Schartner’s Streifzügen besucht unser rasender Reporter das OTOTO in Wien Neubau

– Ein Supermarkt der Superlative.

Der Originalsprache entsprechend dieses Mal englisch.

Dear Raluca, you are the face behind OTOTO. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am the co-founder of OTOTO, not at all the face. If anything maybe one part of the brain – haha.

The most beautiful thing about OTOTO is that there are so many people from the team and community who are seen at OTOTO. I see my role as a curator, community connector & host, idea catalyst (as Anna Paul put it nicely once), in essence I am a dot connector.

But I am also a story listener, to be honest I am a sucker for stories of passion and especially the ones that combine passion with impact (positive impact in a community / the world).

I am also an idealist and optimistic by nature, my mind cannot stop seeing the opportunities in everything and looking for solutions and ideas to make things better…

Lots of the time I notice people look at me with that look of “oookaaay” and I hear often “this is a bubble” – well I have news we in Vienna or even in Europe all live in a bubble or that I live “in a world I invented for myself”.

Well – look around (at OTOTO) least a few hundred people share this invented world.


Fotos: Matthias Balgavy

What was the intention behind opening OTOTO?

It is a long story /  journey… OTOTO connects all dots aka experience, value, lifestyle, ideas, intentions of our lives.

If you want to have the snapshot – mid 2020, after having sold our family business (small, beautiful, healthy food, impact business) to a corporate and realizing its impact & development we had hoped for would not materialize, we put on paper what we experienced we were missing both as entrepreneurs and as clients of small, independent, values driven, beautiful brands.

We re-imagined  the neighbourhood store (the Mom & Pap store, the Tante Emma Laden, the general store in the village) as a platform for these beautiful independent brands, with a slow living experience build around the 3rd wave specialty coffee culture.

A meeting point for everyone already into or just interested / curious about alternative choices, people in the hood and micro communities that share values and intentions towards an alternative, healthier, more mindful, sustainable lifestyle.

We aim to support the small, beautiful independent brands to be seen, heard and mostly touched & tasted.

And thus make it easy (and desirable) for people to make daily choices that one way or the other have a positive impact for them, people & the planet.

One line that could define the OTOTO experience is “slow forward” – we create the place & the context for people to slow down and take this time for self, for people who matter, for exploring and discovery, for better daily choices.

It is not a space to chill only, there is this energy, this call to look, hear, read, make choices.

Describe OTOTO in a few words.

it is basically a platform for beautiful independent brands – in the shape of a neighbourhood store centred around specialty coffee slow living experience – hosting & nurturing communities with common values.

How did the name OTOTO come about?

We were looking for a name to express our role / mission and our daughter who was studying Japanese was always coming back home excited to share the particularities of the language … one day she was talking about how in Japanese there is a different word for younger brother vs older one and how fascinated that is (she also has a younger brother and an older sister so perfectly understands the difference).

OTOTO means younger brother in Japanese

– we loved the sound and aesthetics of it and we were anyway already inspired by the Japanese philosophy, design, love for crafts.

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Are you planning to open more stores?

We are … very fresh – we open our 2nd in the 2nd … We were looking for our next neighbourhoods in Vienna – as a humble neighborhood store we cannot expect Vienna to come to us, but we have to go where the communities are. This is also our promise as a platform for our brands.

What is important to you when selecting products for OTOTO and your visitors?

We started with the idea of creating a platform for beautiful independent brand, for most of them we knew the founders personally and knew they are as passionate, purpose driven as we were.

Most brands are organic, most are crafted with care for communities & nature, most offer healthier choices for people and the Planet, all are beautifully designed (but you can say that is subjective), but all are independent, very much shaped and driven by people with passion who strive to offer solutions for daily choices, to improve how we consumer things.

Why not only organic? you might ask – well we do not believe in labels and stamps, we’d like to think that our curation goes a step further into the sourcing, production, the whole chain, not just what but also how … and then – nobody is perfect, is about the intentions and the steps taken everyday.

Your store carries a selection of independent magazines, including ours. What role do you think print media plays in the modern, digitally driven world?

(Maybe here I can have a short answer) – same as a mom & pap physical store can play in our modern digital e-comm world.

Also, we are inspired by Japanese philosophy & values  (also by their aesthetics and craftmanship).

They have this concept – value of the piles of books not read, we surely hope that our magazines & books are bought or least read here but there is a value having them lots surrounding us here.

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