Lost in Josty's History?

ah the Josty name goes way back, the original was this huge fancy coffeehouse on Potsdamer Platz that was like the spot for writers and artists before WWII. that painting is a copy of an old ad, the dog was a real poodle that belonged to the family. the current café opened in like 2004 or something, totally different location but they kept the name and the old-school feel. if you want more, the book "Berliner Kaffeehäuser" has a whole chapter on them, found it at Dussmann once

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yeah the dog in the top hat thing is pretty well known among regulars, it's a nod to the original Josty family's poodle from back when they ran the place near Potsdamer Platz in the 1800s. the current café opened around 2002 i think, not a replica but a tribute with the same name and some old photos on the walls. if you want the full backstory, the Berlin Story Bunker museum has a small exhibit on old coffeehouses that mentions them, it's worth a visit

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You got lucky with that downpour, the original Josty on Potsdamer Platz was one of those places where you could sit for hours over a single cup and nobody rushed you. The dog painting is a replica of an 1890s advertisement, the poodle was real and belonged to Johann Josty, one of the Swiss brothers who started it all. If you want to see what the original looked like, the Berliner Philharmonie's foyer has a small display case with old photos of the pre-war Potsdamer Platz and you can spot the old Josty facade in a few of them.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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