In Venice, the Gran Caffè Quadri in St. Mark's Square is about to celebrate its first 250 years, It was May 28, 1775 when Giorgio Quadri opened it as a café, similar to the Florian across the street, not imagining that it would become one of the most important and most famous historic cafes in Italy, visited daily by guests from all over the world. Actually, the café under the Procuratie Vecchie in St. Mark's Square has an even older history, but it was not a café first. It opened, supposedly, in 1638 under the name “Il Remedio”, a wine-shop by the glass like so many in the city at the time. Venetians called them “Malvasie” because the whole proposition revolved precisely around this grape variety, which was very popular in Venice. Giorgio Quadri arrived from the nearby island of Corfu with his wife Naxina, intending to find a place to invest the family savings and where he could sell “boiling acqua negra”, as coffee made Turkish style was called at the time and as it was sold in the many stores that lined St. Mark's Square. The café has spanned intense centuries and hosted such illustrious figures as Stendhal, Byron, and Wagner.