Sausage Stands on Wenceslas Square are No More

The last sausage stand on Wenceslas Square was removed in April 2020. Until then an evening out in Prague often ended at one of these stands for a late-night sausage served on a paper plate and a plastic mug of beer. The menu featured a variety of sausages, always served with bread, mustard and sometimes sauerkraut. For non-sausage lovers there was fried cheese and other snacks. You could eat this fatty delicacy at a high table that you shared with a hoard of hungry tourists. There were six of these sausage stands. After remodeling and renovating Wenceslas Square none are left.

Sausage Stands Menu

The menu was simple: a choice of different type of sausages. The cheapest option was German sausages, usually five, in a bun served with mustard and fried onions. Slightly more expensive was Prague sausage red in colour and quite spicy. Bavarian sausage, a chunk of bread, mustard and sauerkraut was a meal in itself. Other offerings were chicken schnitzel and fried cheese. Now that the sausage stands are history, it doesn’t mean that you cannot eat sausages anymore. Most restaurants serve them and, what’s more, better quality and not so greasy.

No more sausages on Wenceslas Square

The main reason for the disappearance of the sausage stands was the redevelopment of Wenceslas Square. Another reason was that for many years the stand holders did not pay the lease on time. The Municipality of Prague filed lawsuits followed by claims. Moreover, the stand holders had the reputation of giving short change. Most tourists did not even notice this as they were in a ‘festive’ mood after drinking (too) much beer. The quality of the finished product varied. The sausages might be overcooked or undercooked which partly depended on the ebb and flow of the customers. The bread was kept on a warming tray, to keep it from going stale. However, it end up as if the bread were rubbery chunks.

Sausage Stands and Long Tradition

The sausage stands had a long tradition. They were on Wenceslas Square already in Communist days and their heydays were in the 1990s when 24-hour fast-food outlets were still uncommon. Over the years the sausage stands became larger, more luxurious and showed more variety in their food menu.The sausages have not disappeared together with pulling down of the stands. Places where you can still enjoy them are in most neighbourhood restaurants, in Riegrovy beer garden (open in summer only), Letna Beer Garden, Christmas and Easter Markets and in many other places.

The sausage stands on Wenceslas Square are history, only photos remain.